


Cause Two Outta Three Ain't Bad (But Three Outta Three Is Better)

by AdelenMontgomery



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelenMontgomery/pseuds/AdelenMontgomery
Summary: Bucky Barnes could tell you the exact moment he knew what love felt like. Not love in the family sense, or the friend sense, or anything like that, but in the love of his life or we’re soulmates kinda way. Not that he knew it at the time, of course, because how could he have possibly known? He knew it was love, sure, but how could he have known that it was the kind that was life-altering? But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.Written for the Stucky Big Bang 2017.





	Cause Two Outta Three Ain't Bad (But Three Outta Three Is Better)

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first Bang and it was a lot of fun! Hope you guys enjoy! Special shout-out to [ princeofprinces ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeofprinces/pseuds/princeofprinces) for reading it over, and special thanks to my lovely artist, [ YoukeyH (Vampisticated) ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampisticated/pseuds/YoukeyH).
> 
> Check out the art and master post on [Tumblr](http://itriedtoart.tumblr.com/post/164458375408/bucky-barnes-could-tell-you-the-exact-moment-he)!
> 
> The title song is ["Two Outta Three Ain't Bad" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGT1AcMRV9w) by Meatloaf. You may want to give it a listen if you're not familiar with it!

 

Bucky Barnes could tell you the exact moment he knew what love felt like. Not love in the family sense, or the friend sense, or anything like that, but in the love of his life or we’re soulmates kinda way. Not that he knew it at the time, of course, because how could he have possibly known? He knew it was love, sure, but how could he have known that it was the kind that was life-altering? But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

He was 13 years old. Old enough to have an idea of what love was, but young enough that no one believed he could understand love.

He was also old enough to know that, despite the fact that he was smiling like an idiot and everything felt so right, it was wrong. It was immoral, sinful.

He’d worry about that later, he supposed, when God was judging his immortal soul. Because at 13, staring at the way the sun made Steve's hair look like a golden halo around his head as they sat outside the Barnes’ apartment on the fire escape, Bucky found he didn’t care. For a moment, it didn’t matter. Steve Rogers looked like an angel, and Bucky Barnes found that he’d fallen for him.

“Why’re you staring at me like that?” Steve asked, squinting at him a little since the sun was behind him.

“I’m not staring,” Bucky said. He hoped that Steve wouldn’t notice how Bucky’s ears were heating up or his voice sounded strangled because he had most definitely got caught staring.

“Riiiight,” Steve said. But in a twist of character, Steve didn’t push it any further than that. He shook his head, smiling, and turned back to his sketchbook. Bucky stared off at the Brooklyn skyline for a little while, but his gaze turned back to Steve again.

He thought that it was a crush. It would pass. Maybe Bucky was just confused. Maybe… maybe… maybe Bucky was in love. But who, at 13, would think that they’d found their soulmate?

*****

At 15, Bucky went on his first proper date with a girl — they went to a school dance; he paid for her ticket and walked to her building to pick her up. Her name was Mary O’Connor. She wore a soft green dress that brought out the color of her eyes, and her golden hair was up in curls. She looked beautiful and Bucky told her so. She blushed, and all Bucky could think of was how Steve turned pink easy, too. Steve hated it, but Bucky thought it was sweet. He wanted to make Steve blush from compliments and a wink.

Bucky shook the thoughts from his head and offered Mary his arm.

Mary was an artist. She was a whiz with a needle or a sewing machine. She was a fantastic and enthusiastic dancer. She was studying French.

Bucky liked talking with her. She was smart — and they read a lot of the same books. She was a nice girl, a good girl. But after he walked her home, he didn’t walk her up to her door or kiss her cheek. She seemed a little put out that he didn’t kiss her.

“See you around,” Bucky said when she waved goodbye from the top of the steps.

“Yeah, see you, Bucky,” Mary said, disappearing into her apartment.

When Bucky got home and flopped into his bed, exhausted from a night of dancing, he still felt like he was dancing — just a little bit. But he wasn’t thinking about dancing with Mary — no, he was thinking about how he’d tried to teach Steve how to dance earlier that week.

Bucky had nettled him until Steve finally gave in, throwing his hands up and sighing, “Fine, Buck, you can try. But I’m no good at dancing.”

“You just haven’t had the right teacher,” Bucky said, jumping up to his feet and turning on the wireless in the Barnes’ living room.

“Haven’t had any teacher,” Steve grumbled, closing his sketchbook that Bucky had saved and saved to get him for Christmas last year.

“Then maybe you just haven’t had the right partner. Come on, Stevie, it’s not too hard.”

“Says you.”

“You gonna be a sour puss all night?”

“No,” Steve said, looking very much like he was going to be. Bucky laughed and grabbed Steve’s hands. He started slow, stepping slow enough that Steve could follow and step back or forward or sideways when he was supposed to. Bucky talked the whole time, mostly just instructions, sometimes teasing jibes to get Steve to scowl at him. Every time he did, Bucky’s heart did little flips.

“Buck, I don’t know if this was a good idea,” Steve said after stepping on Bucky’s foot for the fifth time. “I’ve got two left feet.”

“You’re doing fine. Sometimes it’s easier to go faster,” Bucky said, starting to dance a little faster — though still half the speed of what the dance actually was. Steve tried to follow along, muttering the steps under his breath, but somehow they ended up tangling legs and falling over in a heap onto the floor, Steve half on top of Bucky.

 Bucky was breathless in a way that had nothing to do with landing on the hardwood floor. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it, how he’d never seen it before. Steve’s eyes had flecks of green in them, little islands in the big blue sea.

 Bucky’s eyes flicked down to Steve’s lips for a fraction of a second — were they always so pink? Bucky couldn’t remember — before back up to his eyes. Then Bucky thought better of it and moved to get them up off the floor.

 Lying in bed half asleep, Bucky wondered what would have happened if he’d just leaned forward a little bit and kissed Steve. Or if he’d flipped them first so that he was straddling Steve and then kissed him. Now there was a thought.

 Bucky decided to let the fantasy play out — just a little bit.

 He would have balanced his weight on his shins, not on Steve’s hips. Steve may talk about how he’s not fragile, but Bucky wouldn’t take any chances. To make up for it, so Steve wouldn’t feel like he was babying him, he’d pin his wrists down by his head. Then he’d lean in real slow, staring deep into to Steve’s beautiful, beautiful eyes. Those deep pools of blue with green flecks in them. How had he never noticed those flecks before?

 When he was close enough to feel the heat from Steve’s breaths, he’d stop, pause for just a moment. Roll his hips. Let Steve really know what Bucky’s intentions were. Bucky imagined that Steve’s breaths would be shallow and fast with arousal and that when he rolled his hips, Steve’s breath would catch. And that, that was when he would kiss him.

 He’d go slow, getting a read on Steve every step of the way. Kiss his lips, taste that mouth that got him in trouble all the time. Then he’d kiss his way down Steve’s jaw, listening to Steve’s moans and hitched breaths. He’d slowly start to roll his hips —

 Bucky nearly jumped out of his skin when someone knocked on his door.

 “Bucky, are you okay? You’re making weird noises,” his little sister, Becca, said through the door.

 “I’m —” Bucky cleared his throat — “I’m fine, Becca.”

 “If you say so,” she said, clearly not believing him. Bucky listened as she walked the few steps back to the trundle bed behind a curtain in the living room that was her “room” and waited for the soft swish of the stiff fabric before he sighed. He was really glad she hadn’t opened the door.

 Bucky laid back down and closed his eyes, this time with his fist in his mouth. No more weird noises. Bucky picked up the fantasy where he left off. He hadn’t felt so good in weeks. He hadn’t felt so guilty, either.

 Because, really, what was this going to give him? He had a mess in his underwear and on his hand. That was all it really was going to give him because Steve — good, righteous, stubborn Steve — was too good of a person to share Bucky’s inclinations. Bucky felt sick to his stomach.

 God, how was he gonna face Steve tomorrow? He’d just fantasized about dry humping him in his living room — and oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, part of him didn’t feel guilty at all. That part of him liked it, it wanted to go further: to make the fantasy a reality, to take it further, to — to worship every inch of Steve because goddamn it that boy was practically perfect in every way and Bucky couldn’t understand why no one looked at him. That part of him wanted Steve to look at him.

 But his guilty side won out. Bucky resolved to never think about it again. He’d forget the whole thing ever happened. It was a secret he planned on taking with him to his grave.

*****

 Later that year, he had his first steady girlfriend, Ruth Cooper. She had shiny red hair that she always kept in curls and dark brown eyes that sparkled mischievously. For their first date, Bucky took her to the soda shop after school and they split a cream soda. It kinda became their thing — every other Friday they’d go to the soda shop and split a cream soda.

 “Bucky,” Ruth said one Friday. They’d been together about two months at that point. “Coupla the girls and I wanna go on a group date to the movies tomorrow. You game?”

 “Sure thing, doll,” Bucky said. Ruth smiled.

 “Great,” she said, fiddling with a napkin. “Do you happen to know someone who’d go with Doreen? She doesn’t wanna go alone, but we all want her to be there. Don’t want her feelin’ left out or somethin’.” Bucky had only met Doreen twice, but he knew that she was sweet and kinda shy. But she had an Irish temper like someone else he knew.

 “Yeah, I know someone. I’ll ask him later tonight.”

 “Great! Thank you, Bucky,” Ruth said, kissing his cheek. He ducked his head and smiled.

 After walking her home, Bucky took the long route back to his place so he could swing by the Rogers’ and ask Steve if he was willing to go. And he took the long route to Steve’s to figure out what he was gonna say.

 Bucky let himself in. Steve was sitting underneath the window, sketching in the sunlight. Bucky made sure to move loudly so that Steve would hear him. He still jumped a little when Bucky sat down beside him, hugging his sketchbook close to his chest.

 “Sorry,” Bucky said. “I thought you woulda heard me.”

 “‘S fine,” Steve said, slowing his breathing and quickly closing his sketchbook without letting Bucky see the page he’d been working on.

 “You busy tomorrow?”

 “No,” Steve replied after a beat.

 “Ruth and her friends wanted to go see a picture as a big group date. ‘Cept one of her friends doesn’t have a date. Ruth asked if I knew anyone, and I said I’d ask you,” Bucky said, mentally kicking himself for saying it all so fast. “So whaddya say?”

 “Sure, Buck.”

 “Great,” Bucky said, nodding and looking out the window. “Her name’s Doreen McConnehey.”

 “Oh, I think I know her. Kinda short, blonde, always has a poetry book?”

 “Yup. She gets into fights sometimes, too, like someone else we know,” Bucky teased, nudging Steve with his elbow.

 “Shut up, jerk,” Steve said, nudging him back. They fell into a companionable silence for a while. Then Bucky got up and pulled a book out of his bag and sprawled out on the couch to read. Steve went back to sketching, but Bucky noticed that he’d started a new page.

 They stayed that way for an hour or so, the only noises breaking the still of the apartment were the turn of Bucky’s pages and the scratching of Steve’s pencils.

 

 The group met up at the cinema and bought their tickets for _Grand Hotel_ around three o’clock. A couple of the guys had enough spare cash to buy their gal popcorn, but Bucky and Steve weren’t one of those guys. Ruth said it was fine, she’d just mooch of Anne if she really wanted some. Doreen disappeared for a minute and came back with a bag of popcorn for her and Steve to share.

 When Steve declined politely, Doreen must have taken it as a challenge cause by the time the movie started, the bag was perched between them and they were sharing.

 Bucky sat between Steve and Ruth, and Anne and Doreen sat on either side of them. The whole group took up an entire row and half of another, but it wasn’t much of an issue. They all had a good view of the screen.

 Ruth grabbed Bucky’s arm tightly when the Baron jumped from one balcony to the next. Bucky patted her hand as he looked at her wide eyes. She mouthed ‘sorry’ but he waved it off, mouthing back ‘It’s fine.’

 “They’re not gonna kill him or something, doll,” he whispered. She chuckled.

 But oh, how wrong Bucky was. Because the Baron did, in fact, die at the end of the movie. They were all caught off guard by that. A few of the girls gasped, covering their mouths in shock. Bucky stared at the screen, wide-eyed for a moment before glancing at Steve. His head was tilted towards Doreen, who was whispering something into his good ear.

 Bucky supposed it was a good thing that they were getting along. He wasn’t quite sure why he felt a little jealous about it, so he just ignored that in favor of helping Ruth out of her seat and walking arm in arm with her out of the theater.

 He and Ruth broke up a few weeks later because, in Ruth’s words, “as nice a guy as you are, Bucky, I don’t see us getting anywhere.” He’d let it roll off his back at the moment, but when he got home, he stared at his ceiling for over an hour trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.

 But within three months, Bucky had gone out with four other girls and almost forgotten about Ruth. Though, it would be years before he had another relationship that lasted more than two weeks.

*****

 Bucky was 17 when he got drunk for the first time. He’d tried to get Steve to come with him, but he had a cold and wasn’t up to it at the last minute. So, Bucky went stag.

 There weren’t too many people — Adam didn’t want to get caught and his cousin could smuggle only so much alcohol before it was reckless. And they had to be careful — quiet. Even if Prohibition wasn’t national policy, they’d still be underage. But Adam’s family had connections, and Adam was using ‘em now that he was 18 and had officially joined the business.

 Bucky had a few drinks. He had no clue what his limit was and neither did anyone else so everyone got very drunk. Adam’s sister, Anna, made sure everyone switched to water at midnight so they would be safe to leave in an hour or two. But Bucky slipped out before one.

 He was still pretty drunk when he left. He somehow ended up by Steve’s building instead of his own, and went up the steps to the Rogers’ walk-up and let himself in without really thinking about it. Making out with Cecilia Florence had given him ideas. And Drunk Bucky wanted to try them with Steve because Sober Bucky was far too logical and uptight. So that brought him to where he was: sneaking into the Rogers’ apartment like some kinda creep because he’d gotten it in his mind that he was going to kiss Steve Rogers and he was gonna do it that very night, so help him, God.

 Mrs. Rogers was working the night shift again, so Bucky wasn’t worried about waking her as he moved through the apartment. He only had to cross the main room to get to Steve’s tiny bedroom that was only a little bit bigger than Bucky’s own broom closet of a room and he’d be all that much closer to fulfilling his goal.

 He bumped the couch and it shifted, groaning in protest as one of the feet scraped against the wood floor.

 “Shhhh,” he said, maybe a little too loud, with a finger to his lips. “Quiet, now.” He didn’t hear the door to the bedroom creak open.

 “Bucky?” Steve said, lowering the book he’d been ready to throw. “What’re you doing here?”

 “Stevie!” Bucky said.

 “Quiet, dumbass, it’s the middle of the night,” Steve said, leaning back to toss the book on his bed. Bucky stumbled over to him.

 “Stevie, Stevie,” Bucky singsonged.

 “What’s wrong with you?”

 “I’m drunk, punk,” Bucky laughed. Steve’s scowl deepened. “And you,” Bucky continued, poking Steve in the chest, “you’re cute when you do that.”

 “What?”

 “I mean, you’re — you’re handsome. And it’s not like you’re not all the time, but you’re extra when you’re scowly.”

 “How much did you drink? How did you even get your hands on it?”

 “Adam’s cousin,” Bucky said, “Why, you want some?”

 “No,” Steve said, taking a half step back as Bucky got in his face. “I’ll get you some water,” he said, trying to move around Bucky towards the kitchen. Bucky caught him and pulled him closer.

 “Don’t want water, Stevie, want you,” he said, wrapping his arms around Steve and nuzzling his cheek. Bucky had started to shave, but Steve hadn’t yet. Bucky wondered if the punk ever would.

 “Buck, you’re drunk,” Steve said, “you don’t mean that.”

 “I mean it!” Bucky said, pulling back so he could look Steve in the eye. Steve bit back a laugh at how offended Bucky looked. “I’d never lie to you, we — we made a promise!”

 “Yeah, when we were kids, Buck.”

 “That’s still a promise!” Bucky insisted. What did it matter that he’d been seven and Steve had been six? A promise was a promise, wasn’t it?

 “Alright, alright, it’s still a promise.”

 “Stevie?”

 “Hmm?”

 “Do you like me?” Bucky asked, suddenly shrinking back and stepping away from Steve. For all his bravado, both drunk and sober, Bucky got nervous around him. He started second-guessing himself, wondering if he was good enough, if his shirt was wrinkled, if his hair was messed up. Whenever he tried to convince himself to just fess up and tell Steve how he felt, he couldn’t. He felt like he could see all his flaws in technicolor.

 “What? Buck, of course, I do!” Steve said.

 “So, you’d never tell anyone?”

 “Tell anyone what? That you got drunk?” Steve asked, taken aback that Bucky could ever think that he would do something like that.

 “No,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “About this,” he continued, tilting Steve’s chin up with his thumb and forefinger and leaning in.

 It felt like time slowed down. In the space of a breath, no, less than that, Bucky was kissing Steve. He’d done it — he’d kissed Steve Rogers. His lips were dry but hell, so were Bucky’s, and Steve tasted like sleep but Bucky probably tasted like cheap liquor. It shoulda been gross and awful, but all Bucky could think of was how he never wanted to stop.

 But he did, stepping away again to give Steve his space, give him enough room to take a swing if he wanted. Bucky would take it.

 Instead, Steve just stood there with his eyes closed a half a beat more. Bucky shifted, wondering if he’d overstepped — oh, god, of course he’d overstepped. How had he forgotten that Steve wasn’t like him? That Steve didn’t like Bucky the way Bucky liked him?

 Steve opened his eyes and swallowed. Bucky took in his friend’s silhouette in the moonlight, wishing not for the first time in his life he had some way to capture beyond his own memory that would fade with time.

 “You should sleep this off,” Steve said. “I’ll, uh, get you a blanket, you can pull the couch cushions off.” Then he quickly disappeared into his room.

 Bucky stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what could possibly be going through Steve’s head. He couldn’t so he pulled the cushions off the couch and quietly accepted the blanket Steve offered him.

 He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard Steve mumble “Of course you had to be drunk” before he was fully asleep. But Steve sounded… disappointed? so he was probably just hearing things.

 Neither of them brought it up again after Bucky left the next morning. Bucky told Sarah that he’d just come by to make sure Steve was okay and ended up crashing there.

 “I thought you would,” Sarah said with a tired sigh as she ran her fingers through Bucky’s hair. “You take such good care of him.”

 “I just wanted to make things easier for you, Mrs. Rogers,” Bucky said, feeling sick to his stomach about lying to her. But telling her the truth was out of the question.

 “Thank you, Bucky. It makes me feel less guilty about taking night shifts knowing that Steve has you. Now head home before your mother thinks I’m keeping you,” Sarah teased, shooing him out of their apartment.

*****

 Bucky stuck close to his family. He wanted to go up the front pew and sit next to Steve. He didn’t deserve to be alone, not today of all days. But Bucky’s ma wasn’t letting him leave her side. Mrs. Rogers’ death made her worry about how much time she had left with her own children.

 Steve was 18. And he was alone. He had nothing left. No family.

 Bucky tried his best to keep his eye on Steve, but he lost him as people shuffled out of the cathedral — Sarah Rogers was a kind woman and good nurse. That meant she had a lot of friends. Some of Mr. Rogers’ surviving war buddies and their families had come, too. In the crowd, he lost sight of him. Then he saw the hearse pull away from the curb. A handful of cars followed it.

 “Bucky,” Becca said softly, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. “Do you know where Steve went? Ma and Dad are talking about giving him a ride.”

 “I think they just left,” Bucky said, nodding towards the line of cars.

 “Well, that was quick. Do you wanna go up there? I’m sure they’ll still make the trip if you wanna go.”

 “Nah, I, uh, I’m gonna go by the Rogers’ place. Check on Steve when he gets back,” Bucky said, kicking a stray piece of gravel. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

 “I know,” Becca said. “I’ll cover for you.”

 “Thanks,” Bucky said, taking the hug that she offered.

 “If you don’t get him to come to supper, I’m going to personally drag him to our building. You tell him that for me.”

 “Will do, Beccs, will do,” Buck said. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t.

 Bucky waited by the steps up to the Rogers’ walk up for over an hour. It mighta been close to two. He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. He pushed off the wall when Steve rounded the corner.

 “We looked for you, after. My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery,” Bucky told him as they walked up the single flight of stairs.

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just... I kinda wanted to be alone,” Steve replied.

“How was it?” he asked as they headed towards the door. Great job, Barnes. A real comfort, he thought, mentally kicking himself.

“Was okay. She’s next to Dad.”

“I was gonna ask —”

“I know what you’re gonna say, Buck,” Steve interrupted, digging in his pockets for his key. “I just —”

“Can put the couch cushions on the floor, like when we were kids,” Bucky insisted. “It’ll be fun. All you gotta do is…” Bucky paused to think of something and moved to get the spare key. Steve probably forgot his key again. “Shine my shoes, maybe… take out the trash,” he offered lamely. God, he’d had two hours to come up with something and that’s what he’s got?

Bucky nudged the brick out of the way and stooped to pick it up. He handed the key to Steve, who took it and weighed it in his hand for a moment. “Come on.”

“Thank you, Buck,” Steve replied earnestly. “But I can get by on my own.” Bucky lamented how stubborn Steve was for a moment. He was too stubborn for his own damn good half the time, but the other half was probably why the kid was still alive and kicking.

Bucky supposed he should be grateful for that.

“The thing is... you don’t have to,” Bucky said, grabbing his shoulder. Damn it, you stubborn ass, let me help you, he thought. Aloud, he said, “I’m with you till the end of the line, pal.”

Steve sighed and gave Bucky a small smile that made Bucky’s heart to little somersaults. He wanted to hug him, to comfort him, but Steve would never go for that. So, he left it at that and left Steve alone in his apartment after getting him to promise that he would come by for supper, adding on Becca’s threat. Steve may want to be alone, but he shouldn’t be.

It was only going to be a few hours, but Bucky still felt guilty for leaving him alone as he walked home.

 

 At quarter after six, Becca was just about ready to put her shoes on and march over to the Rogers’ apartment.

 “Rebecca, just wait a few more minutes,” their mother said.

 “You said that five minutes ago,” Becca said. “If we wait too much longer, the food’s gonna get cold.” She left the kitchen, heading towards the door to pull on her shoes.

 “Go with her, would you?” Winifred Barnes asked her son. She gripped the back of one of the dining chairs a little tighter than necessary.

 “Sure, Ma,” Bucky said, pushing off the counter. He’d argue that Becca would be fine, that she could throw a meaner right hook than he could, but he understood why she didn’t want Becca to go alone. Much like Steve, she had a tendency to get into fights.

 But when Bucky got to the door, Becca was standing just outside it hugging a slightly surprised Steve Rogers.

 “I would’ve hated to have had to punch you, Steve,” Becca said, giving him one last squeeze before letting him go. “Come on in. MA! Steve’s here!” she called as she ushered Steve in and shut the door.

 Steve shot Bucky a look and he just shrugged in response. He wasn’t quite sure why Steve wasn’t used to how affectionately protective his sister was, or how his mother mothered him the same way Sarah had mothered Bucky.

 Bucky smiled, shaking his head as his mother came out of the kitchen and hugged Steve. He remembered the first time that his mother had hugged Steve like he was going to disappear.

 They’d been about eight or nine. Becca was about six. Some boy had pulled the ribbon out of Becca’s hair, and she’d punched him, of course.

 “No fair!” the boy cried.

 “Gimme my ribbon!” Becca shouted. That’s what had caught Steve and Bucky’s attention since they had been playing marbles with some of the other boys.

 “No, you punched me!”

 “I’ll do it again if you don’t give it back,” Becca threatened. By now Steve and Bucky (and a few other children) had gathered round to see what was happening.

 Steve had only just come back to school after being out with a cold again, but that never stopped him when he was older, and it certainly didn’t then either.

 “Give her back her ribbon,” Steve said, balling up his fists and standing at her side.

 “You’ll have to fight me for it, Rogers,” the boy said in that smug, cocky way that dozens after him had challenged Steve over the years. He thought he’d win.

 “Okay,” Steve said without a second thought. Bucky pulled Becca away.

 “I can fight ‘im myself!” Becca said.

 “Quiet, Becs,” Bucky said, pulling her over by some of her friends. They got the hint and each took one of her hands.

 When Bucky turned back to Steve, he was already on the ground. He was getting back up, sure, but he wasn’t doing too well since he was still recovering. But somehow Steve got to his feet before Bucky could get to him, using his bony elbow to his advantage as he drove it into the other boy’s gut. He dropped the ribbon, and Steve picked it up calmly, trying to catch his breath as he took it over to Becca. She hugged him tightly before taking the ribbon back. The gaggle of children quickly broke up when one of the teachers started coming over.

 “What’s goin’ on here?” she asked. By then only Becca, Bucky, Steve, and the other boy were left.

 “Rogers punched me!”

 “Only cause you took my ribbon!” Becca said, lunging at him. Bucky caught her round the waist.

 The teacher just sighed and took them all into the principal’s office. When their parents got there, they all sat around and listened to each of the children tell their version of what happened. Bucky couldn’t remember what their punishment had been (it might have been clapping erasers, he did remember a lot of chalk dust) but he did remember his mother kneeling in front of Steve after talking to Sarah and hugging him, thanking him for standing up for her little girl.

 In the present, just as then, Bucky smiled, knowing that Steve was part of the Barnes family whether he knew it or not.

 Once Winifred let go of Steve, he took off his coat and shoes. Then they all sat down around the table to eat. Their father carved the small ham, not so subtly giving Steve the biggest slice. And later, when the whiskey came out, filled Steve’s glass just a little more than everyone else’s. Winifred slipped Steve an extra roll, and Becca gave him a slightly larger piece of the mock apple pie she’d made. Every time they did, Steve looked at Bucky like he could tell them to stop. Bucky smirked and slowly shook his head every time, earning him an eye roll.

 While they were drinking, the five of them still packed around the small table, dishes piled in and by the sink, they started sharing stories about Sarah Rogers. Steve didn’t share very many, but he enjoyed every word, leaning forward in his seat to soak it all up.

 “I remember the day I met her,” George said, smiling. “Real firecracker of a woman, your ma. She was pregnant with you, newly widowed. Her accent was still strong — that’s what caught my attention when I heard her angrily haggling with a man at the farmer’s market. She was tellin’ ‘im his potatoes weren’t worth a penny a pound,” he continued, chuckling. “She kept insisting on giving him two cents a pound, which was still underselling according to her.”

 “Oh, I remember you telling me about that,” Winifred said. “You helped her carry her groceries home and that’s how we found out she was Nathaniel’s wife.”

 “How did you know my father?” Steve asked, eager to hear anything new about the man. 

 “We served together in the 107th during the war,” George said. “He was a good man. There’s a lot of him in you, but mostly, mostly you’re like your ma.”

Bucky looked at his father in surprise. He never talked about the war. The Barnes siblings exchanged a glance, both wondering how hard their father was taking this is he was willing to mention the war.

 “The first time she came over for dinner I thought she was gonna drop. She was always a skinny little thing, but when she pregnant with you,” Winifred said, shaking her head. “I made sure to put more than one meal in her a day whether she liked it or not. Bucky was only a year old then. Sarah and I knew we were in for trouble the moment you two met.”

 “Sarah put Steve down for a minute to help make dinner, which was just enough time for Bucky to plop down on the blanket next to him and decide to protect him with all his toddler might,” George said, smiling and staring at the table. “Sarah said she knew then and there that you’d never be far apart. You’d follow each other into anything, be the last thing either of you would let go, even if you had nothing.”

 “She wasn’t wrong,” Becca mumbled. “She was like my second mom.” Bucky hummed in agreement.

 The silence grew for a moment, no one in any hurry to fill it, though when they broke it, it was with more stories of Sarah Rogers, a proud, kind, hard-working, caring, wonderful Irish woman whose goodness was reflected in her son and everyone who knew her, in every life she saved.

 For a while, it felt like she was there with them, smiling and laughing and crying and remembering all the good and bad and in between.

 “Thanks, Buck,” Steve said as they were walking back to his apartment (Becca had refused to let Steve walk home on his own). “For making me come over.”

 “You’re welcome,” Bucky said.

 “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow — Becca said she was gonna bring me a hot dish and help me clean the apartment.”

 “You say that like you think I wouldn’t come.”

 “I dunno, I thought that maybe you had plans,” Steve said, kicking a pebble and sending it skittering across the pavement. It came to a rest under one of the street lamps.

 “Even if I’d had plans, I would have canceled them already,” Bucky said. They turned the last corner to get to Steve’s building. “I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said I was with you till the end of the line, pal. You’re stuck with me,” he joked, bumping Steve’s shoulder with his own.

 Steve just nodded, pausing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the walk up. “Good night, Buck.”

 “Good night, Steve. Oh, and Steve?” Bucky said, turning back after taking a step away.

 “Yeah?” Steve said, pausing on the steps. Bucky’s breath caught a little, taking in Steve’s silhouette.

 “You know you can come to me with anything, right? Nothin-nothing’s more important to me than you,” Bucky confessed, not quite sure why he’d said it.

 They stood there for a while, the silence growing awkward and heavy between them. Bucky was tempted to ask if Steve remembered when Bucky had broken in drunk, when they’d kissed; but he didn’t. It wasn’t a good time.

 “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bucky said awkwardly, waving and staring at his toes as he turned to leave.

 “Yeah,” Steve said, “see ya.”

*****

 The air was hazy with smoke and filled with the sounds of the live band and breathless laughter as couples moved around the dance floor. The dance hall was packed with people out lookin’ to have fun and most were finding it. Bucky would’ve had to be a complete idiot to not notice that Steve wasn’t enjoying himself. And his date was pretty observant, too.

 “Bucky,” his date, Dolores Hayes, said. “I want to show you and your friend this bar I like. It’s less crowded than here.” She glanced towards the table that Steve and her friend, Samantha Nelson, had been standing by pretty much all night. “Plus, your pal doesn’t seem too keen about dancing.”

 “I’m real sorry about that — he said he’d dance.”

 “It’s fine. Sammy isn’t much for dancing either. So whaddya say?”

 “Sounds great,” Bucky said. He took her hand and they cut a path through the other dancers towards their table.

 “Tired already, _Dolores_?” Samantha said, putting emphasis on her full name. Right, she preferred Dot.

 “No, _Samantha_ , we decided that it would be more fun to go to Goldy’s and talk over some drinks. Besides, it’s packed like a sardine can out there, wasn’t it, Bucky?”

 “Could hardly do the lindy hop without bumping into about five people,” Bucky joked.

 “Well, I’m in for drinks,” Sammy said.

 “Steve? You gonna come?” Bucky prodded when he didn’t say anything.

 “Nah, I think I’m gonna head home.”

 “We can call it a night,” he offered. Sammy and Dot exchanged a look.

 “No, go on, have fun. I have an early morning,” Steve said. “Ladies, it was nice meeting you.” He grabbed his coat and hat and left. The girls waved after him.

 “Well, Goldy’s woulda been a shock to him anyway,” Sammy said. “I don’t think he would have liked it much. He’s too… quiet.”

 “Don’t worry, Bucky, I think you’ll love Goldy’s,” Dot said, grinning.

 “Lead the way ladies,” Bucky said, offering each of them an arm.

 

 Goldy’s was… not like any bar Bucky had ever been to. And Bucky had been to quite a few (and several speakeasies, but even now that was hush hush), but he had never in his life set foot in a place like Goldy’s.

 Goldy’s was a queer bar.

 The door was in an alley, marked only by the fact that there was a burly guy taking a smoke next to it. Sammy walked right up to him and started talking. He laughed at something she said.

 “You sure are somethin’, Miss Ann. Miss Lorie,” he said, tipping his hat. “Who’s your friend here?”

 “This is Howard,” Dot said. Bucky did his best to play cool but he was really glad that the alley was dark and he could hang back in the shadows.

 “Nice to meet you,” the guy said, shaking Bucky’s hand.

 “You, too.”

 “You enjoy yourselves now,” he said as Sammy opened the door. She laughed.

 “You know we always do, Frankie!” Sammy disappeared around the door, and Bucky held it open for Dot before following her in. He may be out of his element, but his ma had raised a gentleman.

 Bucky couldn’t have been prepared for how out of his depth he was as he descended the stairs into the basement of the building. Weird bar, guy havin’ a smoke outside, not using their real names, that Bucky could wrap his head around. (Again, speakeasies.) But he wasn’t prepared for a queer bar.

 “Don’t stare, Howard,” Dot chided, but she was smiling. “Come on.” She pulled him toward a booth in the back of the bar that had a pretty good view of the rest of the place.

 “What the hell is this?” Bucky hissed as soon as they sat down. He wiped his palms on his pants. He kept glancing around like he expected someone to jump out and arrest him. Which, to be fair, he did.

 “It’s a queer bar,” Dot said.

 “Why’d you bring me here?” he asked. He tried to take a deep breath. Calm down. Let them think what they want to — it doesn’t mean they’re right.

 “Oh, dear. Lorie, I think he’s got repressive issues,” Sammy stage-whispered. Bucky shot her a glare.

 “Shush, Ann. Look, I know this is shocking for you, but to people who get it, you are clearly in love with your pal. It only took me half of our double date last week to figure it out.”

 If Bucky’s heart was racing before, it was nothing to what was happening now. Was he really that obvious? He’d been so careful to hide it, to keep himself in check. There was no way he was that obvious. He’d been hiding his feelings for Steve for fucking years, he’d mastered this.

 “I only had to see you drop her off at the end of the night,” Sammy piped up. “With your reputation I expected you to shake her bed frame apar—”

 “I’ll smack you,” Dot threatened her. Then, to Bucky, “Just think for a minute, okay? Don’t do anything rash. We mean well.”

 “I’m not gonna go to the cops if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Bucky said. “I’m not that kinda person.”

 “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought you were. ‘Sides, you can’t bring him here if it’s gone, now can you?”

 “What makes you think I’d bring him here?”

 Dot shrugged. “Your gaze lingered on the skinny blonde guy sitting at the bar alone. You have a type, but you like your pal, so I doubt you’d just pick up someone else. It’s a safe place to show him affection in public.”

She laid it out like it was all so simple, like bringing Steve here was as easy as taking her to any bar in New York. Bucky realized that it would be that simple — no one would bat an eye at a coupla fellas sitting a little too close here. He could bring Steve here, on a proper date, just the two of ‘em. It’s a damn shame that Bucky knew Steve wasn’t interested in fellas — he had his morals in line, unlike Bucky.

But what about when you were 17 and drunk? Steve didn’t take a swing at you then, now did he?

 “I need a drink,” Bucky groaned, running his hands through his hair and resting his forehead on the table. He regretted it instantly since it was a little sticky. Bucky hoped it was cheap beer, like every other sticky bar table.

 “I’ll get ‘em,” Sammy said. Dot asked for a vodka soda and Bucky for a double whiskey. “Back in a jiff,” she said with a wink. Bucky watched as she walked up to the bar and casually started flirting with another dame who was sitting by herself.

 “I know it’s a lot to take in,” Dot said slowly, “but I thought that you’d been to a place like this before, I didn’t realize it’d be a shock.”

 “What makes you think that?” Bucky asked, snapping back up to a sitting position.

 “I just —” She paused, licking her lips. “I assumed a guy like you would’ve been a regular at a place like this.”

 “What do you mean, a ‘guy like me’?”

 Dot gave him a look. “A guy who likes fellas the same way he like dames. I assumed that since you never made a move on your pal, that maybe you’d found comfort elsewhere. I see now that I was wrong,” she explained. “I’m sorry that I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

 Bucky chewed on his lip. She wasn’t entirely wrong — he had found comfort elsewhere. Just with dames, not fellas. Like he was supposed to. (Well, comfort was a stretch now, wasn’t it? It was more like a distraction if Bucky was gonna be honest with himself. Too bad he wasn’t being honest with himself.)

 “Well, the good news is I got a date next Tuesday,” Sammy interrupted, slipping their drinks across the table. “Second good news is the blond at the bar asked about you, Howard.”

 Bucky coughed, almost choking on his drink. “What?”

 “He wanted to know if you were, ya know, interested,” she said with a suggestive glance and eyebrow quirk. Bucky knew she meant in a sexual way. He was grown, he’d had sex before. So why did her comment make his ears turn red?

 “I-I don’t think so,” Bucky said. Dot shook her head at Sammy. She nodded and sat down.

 “Alright. Then we’ll just have our drinks and leave. It’s gettin’ kinda late anyway.”

 “I don’t want to cut your night short.”

 “It’s fine,” Dot assured him, resting her hand on his. “We sprung this on you. You need to think. About a lot of things.”

 “Yeah,” Bucky said, playing with his glass. He did have a lot to think about: How many other people thought...? How many fights were because he and Steve were ‘too close’? How many times had Becca given him the same look that Dot and Sammy had been giving him all night, the one that said how haven’t you told him? How hadn’t he told him? Did Steve still think about that kiss, too?

 He knocked back the whiskey all at once.

*****

 Dot shook a few stray hairs out of her face as she tilted her face up towards the sun. There were a few fluffy clouds floating lazily through the sky and a light sea breeze kept it from getting too hot. They’d picked a good day to come down to Rockaway Beach.

 A couple of kids ran in and out of the water, shrieking and shouting. Seagulls flew around and the few on the ground squabbled over fallen pieces of popcorn.

 “Sometimes I wonder what girls in Europe are doin’ these days,” Dot said out of the blue. “I doubt they get to come to the beach with a coupla handsome fellas.” She winks at Steve to make Bucky chuckle.

 “No, they probably don’t anymore,” Bucky said. “Not with everything that’s been happening.”

 “And now Italy’s declared war on Britain and France,” Dot said, shaking her head. “It’s like the Great War all over again — nations getting pulled in left and right.” Bucky nods solemnly and glances at Steve.

 Steve wasn’t paying attention, lost in sketching the kids playing in the water.

 “Come on, it’s a nice day,” Bucky said. “The war’ll still be in Europe tomorrow,” he continues, slinging an arm over Steve’s shoulders and around Dot’s waist. “Let’s go play some games.”

 “Buck, you’re terrible at those kinda games.”

 “Me, Steve?” Bucky said, clutching his chest in mock offense. Dot rolled her lips to keep from grinning and failed. “I’m great at these games. Pick any one and I’ll win a prize!”

 Steve rolled his eyes and looked around at the different games set up along the boardwalk. “That one, then, jerk,” he said, pointing towards the soda toss game.

 “Alright, that one.” Bucky started walking over, Dot pressed to his side. Steve trailed behind.

 “You gonna win a stuffed bear for me, Bucky?” she asked sweetly.

 “If that’s what you want, doll.”

 Dot laughed. “You’re such a flirt,” she said, swatting his shoulder.

 “Don’t hurt me now, that’s my good arm!” he teased. She laughed again, red lips stretched wide. Bucky was (not for the first time) struck by how much he liked her. He could see himself being content married to her. He could do it if he had to. But he knew he didn’t really want to.

 “Step right up! A quarter for six tosses! Win a prize!” shouted the man running the bottle toss. The empty green glass bottles were packed tightly into a square underneath the tent. The striped canopy was filled with stuffed toys and other prizes.

 Bucky pulled out a quarter from his pocket and handed it to the man. He handed Bucky six plastic rings and wished him luck.

 “Which bear do you want, Dot?” Bucky asked as he got ready to make his first toss.

 “How about that one?” she said, pointing to a plain brown bear on the end of a row.

 “Then I’ll win you that one,” Bucky said confidently. The game wasn’t too hard — throw the rings at the bottles, and if you got one around the neck of one of the bottles, you got a prize. Simple.

 Or so Bucky thought. Dot laughed when Bucky handed over a quarter to try again. Both she and Steve were leaning against the rail and shaking their heads by the time he’d burned through $2.50. Sometime between then and the next three rounds Steve had gone off and bought hot dogs. The one he got for Bucky (all the toppings and extra mustard) waited for him between them on the weathered and splintering wood.

 Bucky took a deep breath before taking his next shot. The little plastic ring bounced around, pinging off of the glass bottles before bouncing out onto the floor.

 Dot placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s time to call it quits, Bucky.”

 “I said I’d win that bear, and I’m a man of my word,” Bucky said, digging out another quarter.

 “You’ve spent, what, four bucks on this now? Come on, Bucky, save your money for something else,” she said gently, shaking her head.

 “When I say I’m gonna do something —”

 “You’re gonna do it?” Dot finished, raising an eyebrow. She sighed, throwing up her hands. “Fine, your money, not mine.” She walked back over by Steve, who had turned around and kept working on his sketch from earlier in the day.

 Seventy-five cents later Dot came up to him again and leaned against the counter so the guy couldn’t read her lips.

 “This is your last quarter, Barnes,” she said firmly. “You’ve spent too much trying to win that silly bear.”

 “You said before it was my money, what changed?”

 “What changed is this’ll be five fuckin’ dollars and we both know you shouldn’t be spending that kinda money on a goddamn carnival game,” Dot said. “Last round.”

 “And what are you gonna do if I play again?” Bucky said, playing with the quarter in his fingers.

 “I’ll take Steve to Goldy’s next Saturday.”

 “You wouldn’t.” Bucky stared at her, and she stared back.

 “I would,” Dot said. “Last quarter.” She pushed off and turned around to watch. “You’ll get it this time, sweetheart,” she said, loud and sweet, hugging him from behind.

 The fifth ring finally stuck around the neck of a bottle. Dot cheered and squeezed the bear tightly after the man handed it to her. Even he shook his head at how much money Bucky had spent on the game.

 She kissed Bucky’s cheek as they walked over to Steve.

 “I told ya I’d win the bear,” Bucky said.

 Steve just shook his head and handed Bucky his hot dog that had grown cold some time ago. “You shoulda just bought her one.”

 “Now where’s the fun in that?” Bucky said. Dot tried and failed not to smile again.

 “And I’ll cherish it forever,” Dot said, holding the bear tightly.

 The trio walked around a bit more, Steve trailing slightly behind as they wove through groups of people. It wasn’t long after that that it was time to go. Dot handed Bucky the bear so she could dig her fare out of her purse.

 “Thanks for the day, Bucky,” Dot said, kissing his cheek as she took the bear back. “It was nice seeing you again, Steve.” She smiled at him and waved at them both as she walked towards the train she was taking home.

 “I know I was kinda irresponsible tryin’ to win that bear, but the money you spent on the hot dogs was our fare, wasn’t it,” Bucky said to Steve, waving goodbye to Dot.

 “Yeah,” Steve said. They both took a deep breath and started glancing around like a way home was gonna just appear outta thin air.

 “Well, Stevie, I hope you don’t mind a bit of a chill,” Bucky joked, elbowing him to get his attention. Steve looked where Bucky was pointing and saw the ice truck.

 “It beats walking back to Brooklyn.”

 “You’re such a punk. Come on, let’s see if he’ll give us a ride.”

 “Alright, jerk,” Steve said, jokingly attempting to shove Bucky’s arm off his shoulders when Bucky put it across them.

 They got to ride in the back of the truck. It was fucking freezing and Bucky made Steve wear his jacket over his own despite his protests.

 But it definitely beat walking back to Brooklyn.

*****

 Bucky was 25 when the war came to the States. Or the States to the war. Or both. Both was probably the closest thing to what happened after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

 Honestly, Bucky should have seen it coming. Of course Steve would try to enlist — and of course he’d try as soon as he was able. It was only February after all. He stared at the paper that Steve had shown him when he asked what was wrong, and the bold, black 4F was the best thing Bucky had seen in weeks. And the worst thing Steve had seen.

 “I know you wanted to enlist, pal, but it’s not the end of the world,” Bucky said, struggling to keep the relief out of his voice. “There’s stuff to do here, too.” Steve scoffed.

 “I’m not collecting scrap metal in a little red wagon while guys are laying down their lives over there.”

 “Then work at a factory or somethin’, Stevie. You’ve got options,” Bucky insisted. You’ve got options I don’t have, Bucky thought, realizing that there was probably a draft letter with his name on it in an office somewhere, waiting. He wasn’t gonna leave Steve if he didn’t have to, but Steve would be angry if he found out that Bucky was trying to dodge the draft.

 “I know, Buck, but I want to serve,” Steve insisted. Bucky sighed, shaking his head.

“I know, Steve, I know. And you tried, you did your best. But this means you gotta do somethin’ else to help the war effort,” he said, tossing the paper back onto the table. He ran a hand through his hair.

 He had run out of things to say because he was rejoicing and Steve was… planning something. Bucky could see the cogs turning in his friend’s head. He was pretty sure he was better off not knowing.

“Don’t do anything stupid, alright? You tried, and that's what matters.” He left it at that and walked away to clean up before starting dinner.

*****

He probably wasn't supposed to see it, but Steve had left it out on the table. At first, Bucky thought that it was the same slip, but the address was wrong. The same 4F stamp, and Steve's name and information, but a different city.

“Steve,” he called.

“Yeah?” he responded, poking his head out of the bedroom.

“What the hell is this?” Bucky asked, holding the paper so Steve could see it. Steve glanced between Bucky's face and the paper before stepping fully into the room.

“It's nothing,” he muttered, reaching to take it. Bucky moved it away.

“Are you sure about that? ‘Cause it looks like you lied on your enlistment form.” Steve didn't even look ashamed. He just looked determined.

“I only changed the city,” he snapped, snatching back the paper. “Doesn't matter anyway, they still turned me away.”

“No, Steve, it does matter because it's illegal. Getting told ‘no’ the first time wasn't good enough for you?”

“I thought that they might take me if I tried again.”

“‘Cause if you're from Connecticut they're more likely to say yes than if you're from New York,” Bucky said dryly. He shook his head. “Just… be careful, alright? You can't help anybody from a federal prison.” _I can’t help you if you’re in a federal prison._

*****

 It was freezing outside and the sleet raining down wasn’t helping anything. Bucky forced another blanket onto Steve, who was getting over a fever, before going to answer the door.

 Dot was shaking and pale, and Bucky ushered her inside, sitting her at the table in the kitchen while he made a hot pot of coffee. Slowly took off her damp hat, gloves, coat, and shoes, all of which Bucky laid over by the radiator that was trying its best to keep out the chill.

 Bucky poured Dot a steaming mug of coffee, setting milk and sugar nearby if she wanted it. Then he sat down next to her. They hadn’t been dating for months now, but Bucky considered her a good friend. Apparently, she did, too.

 “I can’t open it,” she said, handing a telegram to Bucky. As he took it from her trembling hand, he knew what it probably said. And it was either for her brother who had joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor or Sam who had joined the WAC about four months back.

 “What do you want me to do?” he asked, staring at the envelope.

 “Read it aloud. Please,” she said, already near tears. Her grip on the coffee mug tightened when Bucky tore it open.

 “Dear Dolores Hayes,” Bucky read, “I was incredibly saddened to learn of the death of Michael Hayes—” He stopped when Dot let out a choked sob, setting the letter aside and pulling her into a hug.

 They sat there like that for a long time, letting the coffee grow cold and listening to the sleet pelting against the window frame.

*****

 Bucky was barely 27 when the inevitable happened.

He was lucky that he got the mail today instead of Steve. He stared at the draft notice like it would change or disappear if he stared at it long enough. This was it. He'd have to tell Steve; he had to report to boot camp in two weeks.

Bucky sat down hard in the chair, his head in his hands. This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd been hoping against hope that he would never get this damn letter. That he'd never have to leave Steve behind. That they could just wait out the war together, and nothing would change. That they could just stay put and be happy.

Their apartment was small, but it worked. They'd built something that resembled a life here, evidenced by the cheap couch and coffee table, the small radio on the counter, their heavy coats waiting on the hooks by the door, Stevie’s sketchbook resting on the windowsill, the dishes still sitting in the sink from breakfast. Bucky didn’t want to give that up. He never thought that he would get to build a life with Steve of any kind, and just when he thought he had almost gotten the life he wanted, there was a war and enlistment papers and a draft notice waiting to tear it all up.

Bucky looked up when he heard the door open, and put on his brave face.

“You're home early,” Steve commented.

“Yeah, we got a half day, being Good Friday and all.” Bucky looked him over and noticed the paper in his hands. “You tried again, didn't you?” Bucky asked, resigned.

“They still said no,” Steve told him. “What did you do with your time off?”

“Eh, nothing much,” Bucky said truthfully. Now is as good a time as any. “I, uh, I'll be leaving in two weeks, though. I'm supposed to report to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.” There, he said it.

“Oh,” Steve said, his eyes widening for a second. “So you finally enlisted, huh?” he continued, light and teasing. They were both acting like it was good news.

 Bucky shrugged, choosing not to lie, but he wasn't gonna tell him the truth either. He couldn't tell Steve he got drafted, not when he was looking so proud of him, even in the wake of his own rejection.

“Had to go sooner or later,” he said easily, skirting around the truth. “They need every man they can get.”

“We should celebrate,” Steve suggested.

“‘S alright, we don’t have to.”

“Come on, Buck, we should do something. Unless you’d rather go with someone else,” he added awkwardly. 

 _I don’t want to go anywhere, and certainly not with someone else,_ Bucky thought.

“Let’s just stay in tonight,” Bucky suggested, to both their surprise. “We can finish that bottle of whiskey.” Bucky thought it was a great idea. He wanted to spend as much time with Steve as he could because Lord only knows how much he has left.

“Okay, if that’s what you want.”

*****

 It was a terrible idea, actually. Because Bucky was a bit of a flirty drunk. And Steve was a passionate drunk. He’d been talking passionately about serving for quite awhile now, but Bucky didn’t mind. He loved the way Steve’s eyes got all firey, and he started talking with his hands, and he would start repeating himself and saying “ya know?” a lot.

 “I’m real proud of you, Buck,” Steve said for the umpteenth time. “Can serve for the both of us, ya know?” That was new.

 “Sure. I’ll take your picture, so it’s like you’re there,” Bucky smirked.

 “What, like guys take pictures of their girls?” Steve teased. “Don’t think they’ll like that much.”

 “Well, fuck ‘em. I’ll keep a picture of whoever I want,” Bucky said with more finality than was appropriate. He took another sip of his drink. He couldn’t look at Steve anymore. Steve’s cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and he kept licking his lips. Bucky was so focused on not kissing Steve even though he really, really wanted to that he didn’t see Steve blink, or how his ears turned pink at the thought of Bucky secretly keeping his picture with him.

 “That’s pretty risky, Buck.”

 “Don’t think I’m gonna listen to you about what’s risky behavior, punk, not with you getting into fights that I gotta finish.”

 “I had ‘em on the ropes, jerk. I always do.”

 “Sure ya do, Stevie.” Bucky made the mistake of looking at Steve then. He stared at his lips for way too long, but Steve didn’t notice because he was doing the same. He tore his gaze away to look at the clock. “We should go to bed,” he said, breaking the spell.

 “Yeah, probably,” Steve agreed. They both finished their drinks, and Bucky put them in the sink and the mostly empty bottle of whiskey in the cabinet.

*****

 Bucky came back from basic a different man. He had the same confident swagger, the same cocky smile, but he also had a military haircut, sniper skills, and the three stripes of a sergeant on his left arm. ‘Course, for the most part, it seemed to only add to his confidence. Being a soldier (whether you enlisted or were drafted didn’t seem to matter) made people respect you. Girls were certainly friendlier— and in certain parts of town, at certain times, guys were friendlier, too.

 But Bucky only had eyes for one guy; who seemed to be the only guy that didn’t have eyes for him.

 The first few days after Bucky got back were a bit tense and awkward. Bucky chalked it up to Steve being a bit jealous of the uniform (mostly because the other option was that Steve was turned on by Bucky in uniform, and that was out of the question). The punk did want to enlist more than anything, so it seemed like it was the clear answer.

 Whatever the case, Bucky wore it as little as possible. He didn’t want the damn thing, and he didn’t want what little time he had left with Steve to be spoiled by a goddamn uniform.

 He didn’t have much of a choice, though, once his orders came in.

 He sat at the table for a few minutes after he got the letter, staring aimlessly at the floor. Then he got up and made sure everything was in order, ready for him to leave. (It had been for the better part of two weeks, but checking again bought him some time to think.) After that was done, he put on his uniform. He grabbed the newspaper and left the apartment, a mostly-formed plan for his last night in New York in his head.

*****

 A few hours later, everything was in order. Well, except one thing. He still had to find Steve. He was about to give up and wait for him at the apartment when he heard a scuffle in an alley.

“You just dunno when to give up, do ya?” He heard from the end of the alley. Meant the other guy was Steve, most likely. Bucky turned down the alley to intervene.

“I can do this all day.” Yup, it was Steve. Bucky watched him throw a punch that wouldn’t have hurt a butterfly even if he hit something, and the then the other guy socked him in the jaw, sending Steve to the ground, where he laid, spread out, just a little too still.

“Hey!” Bucky shouted, grabbing the guy’s arm and pulling him away from Steve. “Pick on someone your own size,” he growled. The guy swung at him, but Bucky dodged before hitting the guy in the jaw and kicking his ass. Once he saw the guy was running out of the alley, he turned back to Steve. He didn’t look too good, but the day Steve Rogers admits he’s in pain is the day hell will freeze over. “Sometimes I think you like getting punched.”

“I had him on the ropes,” Steve rasped, rising to his full height. Bucky noticed what looked like an enlistment card on the ground.

“How many times is this?” he asks, resigned, as he opens it. “Ah, you’re from Paramos now. You know it’s illegal to lie on your enlistment form.” _Let it go, he’s not gonna listen. If he was going to, he would’ve already._ Bucky switched from scolding to teasing. “But, seriously, Jersey?” Steve finally looked at him and noticed the uniform.

“You get your orders?” Bucky braced himself. He wasn’t quite sure how Steve would react, but he might as well pretend he was excited, right? Steve already thinks he’s enlisted, not drafted, so what’s one more little lie about this?

“The 107th. Sergeant James Barnes, shipping out for England, first thing tomorrow,” he told him, with as much bravado as he could muster. Steve nodded.

“I should be going,” Steve muttered. They looked at each other, and Bucky hoped his eyes didn’t betray him. Because, if they did, then Steve would see how fucking scared he was. To break the building tension, Bucky broke into a grin, slinging his arm over Steve’s shoulders.

“Come on, it’s my last night. Gotta get you cleaned up,” he said as they walked towards the mouth of the alley. Keep the plan rolling.

“Why? Where we goin’?” Steve asked. Bucky tossed the enlistment card over his shoulder as he handed Steve the paper. Steve unfolded it to see the ad for ‘The World Exhibition of Tomorrow’ taking up most of the page.

“The future.”

*****

“I don’t see what the problem is; you’re about to be the last eligible man in New York. You know there’s three and a half million women here,” Bucky said as they walked down the steps at the expo.

“Hell, I’d settle for just one,” Steve said.

“Good thing I took care a that,” Bucky said, waving at the girls he’d asked to accompany them. Sorta. He’d been surprised to find a couple that was willing to pretend to be their dates while they were on a date of their own, but it had been his goal earlier that afternoon.

“Hey, Bucky!” called Connie, waving back.

“What’d ya tell her about me?” Steve asked defensively. Bucky wanted to laugh— his plan was working out alright. Steve honestly thought that they were on a double date— which they were, sorta, just not the way Steve thought.

“Only the good stuff,” Bucky smirked. (The girls had grilled him about Steve, and at the end of it, looked at each other and agreed to go with them to the Expo. They told Bucky that he “better get a move on before somethin’ happens” since “love like that is once in a lifetime.” He just had to work up the courage.)

 

Working up the courage was really fucking hard. Bucky didn’t want to screw things up between the two of them because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing Steve as a friend, but at the same time he didn’t want to know if Steve loved him back because he was leaving for a goddamn war zone in the morning, and he wasn’t sure he was gonna come back. Both possibilities terrified him, but he had to make up his mind — was he gonna confess his feelings to Steve or was he gonna take it to his grave?

Unfortunately, that meant he was a little, well, distracted. And he ended up ignoring Steve a bit. He didn’t do it on purpose, it just kinda happened. The girls were so excited to see everything, and then Steve slipped away —

To a goddamn recruitment station. Bucky was cussing up a storm in his head as he trailed behind him, but, just like before, was teasing and joking when he caught up to him.

“Come on, you’re kinda missing the point of a double-date,” he teased, pushing Steve’s shoulder. “We’re taking the girls dancing.” Cause they can’t dance together, and neither can we.

“You go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”

After you try to enlist again, you stupid punk, Bucky thought. “You really gonna do this again?” he asked aloud. He was honestly so damn tired of Steve trying to enlist, why couldn’t he just stay home where it was safe?

“Well, it’s a fair. Gonna try my luck,” Steve responded simply.

“As who, Steve from Ohio? They’ll catch you— or worse, they’ll actually take you.”

“Look, I know you don’t think I can do this—”

“This isn’t a back alley, Steve, it’s war,” Bucky interrupted.

“I know it’s a war—”

“Why— why are you so keen to fight? There’s so many important jobs—”

“What do want me to do? Collect scrap metal—”

“Yes!”

“— in my little red wagon?”

“Why not?” _Don’t you know I’d give up anything to stay here, with you?_

“I’m not gonna sit in a factory—”

“Then don’t—”

“Bucky, Bucky! There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.”

“Right. ‘Cause you got nothin’ to prove.”

“Hey, Sarge! We going dancing?” called Bonnie, interrupting their… argument.

“Yes, we are!” Bucky replied cheerily like he wasn’t ready to rip Steve’s stubborn head off. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” Buck instructed Steve, walking away.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Steve retorted. Bucky shook his head and closed the distance between them.

“You’re a punk,” he said, hugging Steve.

“Jerk,” Steve whispered. “Take care.” Bucky turned to leave, and Steve called after him, “Don’t win the war till I get there.” Bucky turned around and gave him a half-hearted salute.

“Steve isn’t comin’ with?” asked Connie when Bucky got to the girls.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “The stupid punk is trying to enlist again.”

“Well, they say persistence is a virtue,” Bonnie said in an attempt to lighten the mood. “My ma always taught me to go after what I want. I don’t regret takin’ her advice,” she continued, grinning and squeezing Connie’s hand.

“If I come home, I’ll tell Steve everything.”

“You’ll come home, Sarge,” Connie said definitively.

“How’d do you know that?”

“‘Cause you got someone to come home to, silly!” Connie laughed, playfully swatting his arm. “Now come on, let’s go dancing!”

“Yeah, Sarge, it’s your last night in New York for a long time. You said you wanted to have fun, so let’s go!”

“Alright, alright,” Bucky placated, smiling. “I know a nice place not far from here.”

The three left the fair and went dancing, as promised. When Bucky got home, Steve was already asleep and was still asleep when Bucky left the next morning before the sun had fully risen. They had already said their goodbyes, but Bucky still felt like he was leaving without saying them. Maybe it was because he wanted to part as more than friends.

He’d keep his promise to himself though. When he got back from the war, he’d confess everything to Steve.

If he got back, he thought, remembering sitting at the kitchen table and reading the telegram to Dot over a year ago, how pale she had been, and how last time he’d seen her she’d been fearing getting a telegram about Sammy. It had been enough to convince him not to put Steve on the list of people to inform. He’d put Becca and his parents. They’d tell Steve if the worst was to happen.

*****

 Bucky had been in Europe for 7 and a half weeks when his first care package from home came. Like everyone else when they got news or letters or packages from home, he was grinning like a fool and couldn’t stop if he wanted to and he hadn’t even opened it yet.

 He waited until he was in the “privacy” of his bunk in the barracks that night to open it. He ran a finger over the address that was in Becca’s hand. She’d no doubt tricked their ma into letting her write it because she knew Bucky would recognize it and know that’s what had happened.

 Tearing open the paper, he tried to save it. It was stupidly sentimental, but he carefully folded the paper and stowed it in his foot locker. Then he opened the box and carefully took everything out.

 A pair of gray knit socks. A small bag of partially melted penny candies. Three different letters. A postcard with some schmuck in a ridiculous costume on it that said ‘Every bond you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun!’.

 He flipped the postcard over and read the note that Becca had written:

 

>   _You should see his show. He’s a dream and you’ve always been better at placing people than I ever was. I know I know him somehow. And no I didn’t make out with him in the alley behind a bar get your mind outta the gutter. But Captain America here is the poster boy for war bonds now. He’s going on a nationwide tour and then I hear he’s s’posed to go perform for the troops. (He wears tights. Tights!)_
> 
> _The candy is from me, by the way. I know that sweet tooth of yours is killin’ ya._
> 
> _xo Becs_

 Bucky chuckled, flipping the card back over. This Captain America guy looked familiar, but Bucky would remember a guy built like that. Maybe he did know him… it’ll come to him.

 He looked at the letters. There was one from his parents (“and” Becca), one from Dot, and the last one was from Steve.

 He might feel guilty about it later, but he decides to read Steve’s first.

_Dear Bucky,_

 Bucky didn’t get any further than that before the air sirens began to blare. He cursed colorfully as he pulled his boots back on and ran out to get to his post.

*****

 Four months later, after being shifted all over, the 107th was sent to northern Italy. They set up camp not too far from a small town called Azzano.

*****

 It was usually hard to see at night since there were only stars and maybe the moon to go by between bursts of gunfire in the fields. But then sometimes there were fires — like tonight. A jeep had caught on fire and wasn’t that just great? They couldn’t use it to get the wounded out, Bucky lamented, even if they weren’t pinned down by mortar fire and encroaching enemy soldiers. Not to mention the smoke from it was making it damned difficult to see.

 Bucky needed to have a second to think, to plan — how the hell was he gonna get his men outta here? God, this was a fuckin’ mess of a situation. And where the hell was their backup? Bucky wondered as he jumped down into a crater to have some kinda cover. Dum-Dum and Gabe followed him a moment later. He took a second to breathe, adjusting his helmet so it sat better on his head.

 Everyone was shouting, everyone was always shouting out here, it was the only way to be heard over the _brrrriiiipppp_ of machine guns and booms of mortars and bangs of gunfire and everyone else who was shouting. The dying could be as loud as they wanted — they earned that much. There were few who died without screaming. Bucky morbidly joked with himself that it was a right of passage — you come into the world screaming and bloody, you leave the world screaming and bloody.

“There’s gotta be at least five mortar companies out there,” Dum-Dum said. Great.

“Radio B Company, tell ‘em we need cover,” Bucky told Gabe.

“That might be tough,” Gabe said, holding his shot out radio up just enough to show the damage. Bucky didn’t even have time to curse God or whoever the hell was listening before Dum-Dum shouted:

“Bucky, behind you!”

Bucky turned around, taking a few shots to eliminate the threat before looking across the hole and down the hill. There was no time for thinking, they were pinned down, and it was growing hopeless. But goddamn were they gonna go down fighting. Give ‘em hell till the last.

“Here they come!” he shouted, diving across the hole to be closer and have something to prop his rifle against as he started firing. Dum-Dum and Gabe flanked him, all three firing down the hill and picking off enemy soldiers one by one.

Bucky paused, pulling back from his scope after soldiers disappeared in flashes of blue light. They could hear the metallic clang of the machine that fired the blue light. It was weaponry unlike anything they’d ever seen — it was like somethin’ outta one of those science fiction novels Bucky read as a kid. New, probably classified tech that was being field tested by someone was the most likely answer. In any case, they seemed to be on their side — the battle was turning in favor of the Allies with just a few shots.

“What the hell was that?” Dum-Dum said, awed, as the three of them climbed out of the hole. Behind them, Bucky could hear other men shouting and wondering if this mystery fire was on their side.

The blue lights stopped coming, one last explosion hitting the side of another large hill and sending a fountain of dirt into the air.

 “That looks...new,” Dum-Dum said as a fucking huge tank rolled over the crest of the far hill.

Something in Bucky’s gut told him that there was something off about the whole situation. No, he wouldn’t have known about new tech that was being tried, and their radio was broken so they couldn’t have been informed about the arrival of backup, but something felt off.

He didn’t even think, just reacted when the giant turret on the tank swiveled to aim at them. “DOWN!” he yelled, diving into the hole he’d just crawled out of.

He heard the tank fire as his shoulder hit the dirt. He felt dirt ran down on him, the impact close enough — or powerful enough — that he felt it. It shook him to his core. Another impact sent more dirt raining down, rattling Bucky’s teeth.

He didn’t remember anything after that. All he could think of was how he wasn’t going to make it home. He hoped that Becca would drag Steve out of the apartment, make him eat and take his meds — Becca was tough enough that maybe she’d pull Steve out of fights he couldn’t finish. She’d promised to keep an eye on him while he was gone.

They’d hoped it would only be a few months, but Bucky had a feeling it was about to be a dead man’s last request.

“You’ll come home, Sarge,” Connie had said. Bucky prayed that was true. God, he wanted it to be true. He needed it to be true.

He knew it wasn’t.

*****

 “Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant, 32557038,” he repeated, over and over and over and over again, until the words sounded fake and held no meaning and Bucky could barely talk anymore.

 “I’m going to need you to stay awake, Sergeant Barnes,” said the squat man that claimed to be a scientist. Bucky supposed that maybe he was; just of the evil, torturing variety. “I need to be able to gauge your reactions,” he continued, shining a light into Bucky’s eyes. The light barely phased him anymore.

 “Barnes, James Buchanan…” Bucky repeated. He wanted to stop, ask what they wanted from him, why were they torturing him but not asking for information, why this was being conducted like a science experiment; but he couldn’t seem to form any other words. And besides, that would show they’d broken him, right? He wasn’t going to break.

 He thought about his parents. His ma made the best sweet bread and without fail would make a small cake for his and Becca’s birthdays. Some years it was smaller than others, but it was a cake all the same. His pa would come home from work covered in motor oil no matter how hard he’d tried to clean up before he left the auto mechanic shop. He was the only one that knew Bucky had been drafted, not enlisted. He was the only one who understood why Bucky didn’t want to go, and then lied about it. Bucky wondered if he’d keep that secret after they got that awful, awful telegram.

 He thought about Becca. When they were kids, sometimes they’d get snow cones on hot summer days. The sticky sweet syrup would sometimes soak through the paper cones, coating their hands. Becca always got red, and sometimes it would stain her hands. He thought about the time he’d caught her sneaking back into the apartment because he’d happened to get up for a glass of water. She smelt like stale cigarettes and their mother’s perfume and had stumbled a little. She’d jumped and put her hand over her heart, hissing, “Don’t scare me like that!”

 He thought about Steve. He almost always had a pencil or three on him, ready to draw something on anything. There was a shoe box in their apartment full of drawings on napkins and newspaper margins Bucky had found and saved. Steve was so full of passion that it leaked out in everything he did, from mindless doodles to standing up for what’s right. He thought about the time Steve almost got them killed by challenging one of the local gang members because he’d been harassing a girl. The guy had gone off and gotten a few of his friends, but one of them recognized Steve as “Nurse Rogers’ boy” and told him to cool it.

 He thought about Sarah Rogers. He missed her. She’d always welcomed him to her table, even when she barely had anything to put on it. No matter how sneaky Bucky was, she’d always find the money he’d left and shove it back in his hand the next time she saw him. Sarah Rogers was one of those people that you weren’t quite sure they weren’t an angel on Earth. She was always brave, hardworking, and kind. He knew what she’d say if she were here now: “You always stand up.”

  _I’m sorry, Mrs. Rogers, but I don’t think I can anymore. I’m so sorry_ , he thought; his last conscious moment before he slipped into nothingness, the pain too much to bear.

*****

 Apparently, a lot can happen over a matter of months. Bucky was fairly certain that he was missing more time because there was no way that it had only about seven months since he had seen Steve.

 His first thought when he saw Steve was that he’d died, or he was hallucinating. Because it was Steve, Bucky could tell, but at the same time, he wasn’t Steve. Wasn’t his Steve.

 “I thought you were dead,” Steve said like all his prayers had been answered. Bucky just felt like this was some kinda cruel joke.

 “I thought you were smaller.” _And safe in Brooklyn._

 “Come on,” Steve said after giving Bucky a moment to orient himself. He half-carried Bucky out of the lab, Bucky nearly stumbling in an effort to keep up.

 “What happened to you?” Bucky asked, getting steadier on his feet the more they moved.

 “I joined the Army,” Steve said absently, looking around.

_I don’t have time for your sass, Steve._

 “Did it hurt?” Bucky asked, resolutely not thinking about whatever the fuck had happened to him before Steve showed up. If what had happened to Steve was anything like that…

 “A little.” Translation: a fuck ton.

 “Is it permanent?” Bucky remained a pace behind Steve. Old habits die hard.

 “So far.” That was a bit disappointing, but all the same, all Bucky had ever wanted was to see Steve healthy. He guessed now the punk’s bite matched his bark.

 They quickly moved through the catwalks, pausing a moment as the weapons manufacturing below began to explode. It left them one option: go up to get across.

 “Captain America!” someone shouted in accented English, causing the two friends to pause in their tracks. “I am a great fan of your films.” Bucky didn’t care about that man, but the smaller man in his company, Zola, he wanted to kill him for what he’d done. Bucky hadn’t noticed that Steve had stepped out onto the catwalk until the two halves began to retract.

 “No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!” shouted the man, peeling off his face— no, a mask.

 “You don’t have one of those, do you?” Bucky asked, half serious, half joking. Steve didn’t respond, and Bucky figured he hadn’t heard him. Bucky wondered if maybe he would have to run around like that, wearing his face over his real face...

 “Then how come you’re running?” Steve challenged. Bucky suppressed a groan. Despite all the physical changes, Steve was the same as Bucky had left him. The kid never could back down from a fight, even at the cost of his own well being. No, especially at the cost of his own well being.

 They headed up the stairs again, rising to the level of the support beams as more explosions rocked the facility. The beam wobbled with each explosion, but it wasn’t like they had a better option.

 “Let’s go, one at a time,” Steve said, helping Bucky over the railing. He still wasn’t very sure on his feet yet, but the adrenaline was helping. He steeled his nerves and took it step by step.

 Then the beam nearly gave away, scaring him half to death. But it remained attached to the other side— just long enough for Bucky to get far enough across to jump and grab onto the railing.

 But Steve was still on the other side.

 “There’s gotta be a rope or somethin’!” Bucky shouted. There was no way Steve could get across. Not unless he could jump that far, and Bucky severely doubted that.

 “Just go! Get outta here!”

 “No! Not without you!” Damn it, Steve, I’m not leaving you. Never again.

 Steve glanced around, weighing his options.

 Evidently, this new body came with the ability to bend steel pipe and jump across a 30-foot chasm. Handy.

*****

 The walk back to camp was long, and, quite frankly, awkward. Bucky didn’t know how to deal with the change in Steve. He was getting used to the physical changes, but the part where people noticed him, listened to him, took his orders— that took a bit more to get used to. But that didn’t mean Bucky was any less happy for it. Steve was finally getting the respect that he deserved.

 Bucky just hated that Steve had to sign up to be a lab rat to get it.

 “So, what’s with the getup?” Bucky asked Steve. “That shield of yours isn’t exactly Army issue.” It was something that had been bothering him since they’d left the smoking remains of the Hydra facility.

 “It’s a prop,” Steve said, unconsciously reaching over his shoulder to check that it was still slung across his back.

 “A prop.”

 “You, uh, ever see the Captain America posters?” Steve said, avoiding eye contact with Bucky.

Bucky gaped at him. “The war bond campaign?”

 “Yup.”

 “I’m sorry, you’re a stage character?” Bucky asked, putting a hand on Steve’s chest to stop him. Bucky stood in front of him. Steve set his jaw before looking Bucky in the eye. God, it was gonna take a long time for Bucky to get used to physically looking up at Steve.

 He couldn’t believe that Steve was Captain fucking America, the muscly hunk that he (and Becs, too, probably) had been trying to place for months. His stupid fucking jawline was the same, that shoulda been a dead give away.

 “Technically I’m a captain,” Steve said, looking Bucky in the eye.

 “So if I tell you that you’re a fucking dumbass you’re gonna write me up?”

 “No! Of course not, Buck.”

 “Good. You’re a fucking dumbass. How did you get them to let you stage a rescue mission? What kinda weight does ‘Captain America’ have?”

 “Hopefully enough to avoid a court martial. I went against orders,” he admitted. Bucky took a deep breath.

 “You what?” Bucky said, trying very hard to keep his voice down and level. Other men were passing them by, too tired to really care about what Steve and Bucky were doing, but he couldn’t yell at an officer, even if they’d known each other forever and he was the biggest fucking reckless dumbass Bucky had ever met.

 “The brass thought it was too risky.”

 “Damn right it was too risky! What put the idea into your goddamn head that this was a good idea? You coulda gotten yourself killed! And then what?”

 “Buck, I had to know if you were… Someone had to,” Steve said, steeling his gaze, even against Bucky’s glare. “And I think it turned out alright,” he continued, gesturing towards all the men that were marching back to camp because of him. Men who could go home to their families.

 Bucky chewed his lip for a moment, counting to ten. He wanted to chew Steve out, he really did, but he was proud of him. He’d rescued all these men, Bucky included.

 “And if it wasn’t you, it wouldn’t have been anybody, huh?”

 “Phillips wasn’t about to send anyone. He didn’t want to risk any more men,” Steve said, getting less defensive when he noticed the shift in Bucky.

 “Smart. There was a better chance of finding us dead than alive,” Bucky said, thinking about his unit that he’d failed to protect from capture. Most of them were alive though. Gabe and Dum-Dum were, which was a relief. Friends are dangerous things to have out here. “But thank you, Steve. As reckless and stupid as this was, you pulled it off. Lotta guys’ll get to go home now.”

 Steve nodded, smiling. Bucky’s heart clenched. He’d missed Steve so much — but now, how much time did they have? Men die left and right out here… Maybe Bucky should just tell him he loves him because god does he want to kiss him right now.

 Instead, he clapped Steve’s shoulder and fell into step by his side as they started walking again. It was better to wait. Whether that meant till they had some privacy or till they were back in Brooklyn… well, time would tell.

 When they arrived back at the camp, everyone started crowding around. Bucky stayed by Steve but took a step back when a woman walked up to him.

 “You’re late,” she said.

 “Couldn’t call my ride,” Steve said, brandishing a radio that looked like it had gotten shot. Bucky wasn’t paying much attention to the radio, however. He was more focused on the look on Steve’s face.

 Steve liked this woman. And the feeling seemed mutual.

 “Hey! Let’s hear it for Captain America!” he shouted, spurring the rest of the men into cheering. Bucky didn’t join in, too busy trying to sort through too much all at once: Steve and this dame, how Steve was here in a war zone, what had happened to him on that table under Zola’s hands… One way or another, Bucky had a terrible feeling he was going to lose Steve.

*****

 The bar was crowded, but the good kind of crowded. The piano was playing some happy tone that guys were singing along drunkenly to, and conversation was a constant hum in the smoky air. Bucky was trying his best to get sloshed — somehow he wasn’t really getting anywhere.

 “See? I told you, they’re all idiots,” Bucky said jokingly as Steve sat next to him on a barstool. He could tell from Steve’s face the others had agreed to join his team.

 “How about you? Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

 “Hell no. That little kid from Brooklyn that was too dumb not to run away from a fight… I’m following him.” _I’m following you, damn the icon. I’m with you til the end of the line, you know that._ “But you’re keeping the outfit, right?” he teased. Steve looked at him, and it was the same look he’d always had, one that said _I’m tired of your shit, Barnes_ in the fondest way.

 “Ya know what, it’s kinda growin’ on me,” Steve responded, easily falling into their pattern of banter again like nothing had changed. It soothed something in Bucky that he hadn’t even realized was bothering him until it was gone.

The noise in the other room quieted then, and they both leaned back to see why. They rose as Agent Carter stepped through the archway.

 Bucky looked her up and down, not planning to flirt— this was different. It was like he was… checking out the competition. Fuck, was he jealous?

 Based on how he felt when he saw how Steve was looking at her, yeah, he was jealous. Because he still had a crush on Steve.

 And Steve still has no idea how to talk to a dame.

 “I see your top squad is prepping for duty,” Peggy said.

 “You don’t like music?” Bucky asked, flirting _for_ Steve, mostly because it’s not like he’d ever been able to flirt with Steve, and deep down Bucky knew they both had to settle down with a nice girl when they did. And the idiot needed all the help he could get.

 So, despite the fact that all he wanted was for Steve to look at him like that, Bucky flirted with Agent Carter on Steve’s behalf.

“I do actually. I might even, when this is all over, go dancing.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“The right partner. 0800, Captain,” she said, turning on her heel at leaving.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there,” Steve said, finally opening his mouth. Bucky resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m invisible. I’m turning into you. It’s like a horrible dream,” Bucky said, feigning disbelief to hide the fact he could feel his heart breaking — for no good reason, since Steve wasn’t his, and never had been. But now, he never would be, either. Bucky wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He had made a promise to himself after all. But he wasn’t home from the war yet and with Steve here, he wasn’t going to take the medical discharge that he knows he should take. He’s going to hang onto every second he has with Steve because he doesn’t know which will be his last.

“Don’t take it so hard,” Steve said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Maybe she’s got a friend.”

Bucky laughed at the irony. Finally, the tables had turned, but it was too late. Bucky was helplessly in love with Steve, and there was no coming back from it. He knew that now. There was no point in denying it any longer.

He was going to love Steve Rogers until Judgement Day, no matter what happened.

*****

 A few months and several successful missions later, the ‘Howling Commandos’ were simultaneously part of the propaganda machine and the Allies best defense against Hydra. They still didn’t know what powered Hydra’s weapons, but it was more important that Hydra couldn’t make more. The Howlies were getting good at blowing up Nazi weapons factories.

 So debriefings usually didn’t take very long (briefings didn’t either, but that was beside the point) and definitely didn’t require anything “extra.” So when Agent Carter asked Bucky to step into her office to answer a few extra questions… well, Bucky took the luck that Dum-Dum wished him. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

 “Close the door, Sergeant,” she said, rounding her desk to sit down. She shifted a pile of papers out of her way as Bucky did as he was told. “You should probably sit down.”

 “How long is this going to take, ma’am?” Bucky asked, not wanting to be here for longer than was absolutely necessary. He sat down anyway.

 “I suppose that depends on you. And, if you don’t mind, we can drop the formality. This is a… personal matter. Off the record,” Peggy said. Bucky wasn’t sure, but she looked nervous.

 “Alright. This about Steve? He hasn’t done something stupid, has he?” Bucky was already drafting a rant if Steve had blown his chance with Peggy. She was a good person, Steve deserved that.

 “Yes, actually — but, no he hasn’t done anything stupid. Though I suppose that’s subjective. I think he’s being foolish, but others may say he’s being wise.”

 “That’ll be the day,” Bucky chuckled. Peggy smirked. “So, what did Steve do? Or not do?” Bucky asked, brow furrowed.

 “I could ask you the same,” she said.

Bucky let the silence drag out as they stared at each other. He could feel his heart pounding and resisted the urge to wipe his palms on his pants because the look she was giving him had to mean she _knew_.

“How long have you loved him?”

“With all due respect, what you’re suggesting —”

“Could get you dishonorably discharged, yes, I know. I take it he doesn’t know?” Peggy asked. “I promise I won’t say anything. I doubt he’d stay long if you were sent home, and I’d rather not deal with the complexities of Captain America being court martialed for desertion.”

“That sounds like it’d be a nightmare.”

“It would.”

Bucky leaned forward, wringing his hands. “I never said anything, and he’s pretty blind.” Because kissing him at 17 didn’t count — he hadn’t said a damn thing. And besides, that was a decade ago. Steve had probably forgotten all about it — wrote it off as just a drunken act. Just like when Bucky said he’d carry his picture with him.

Ah fuck. Steve may be dense but he’s not a complete idiot. He has to have put two and two together by now.

Peggy nodded. “I imagine you want to keep it that way.”

“It’s safer,” Bucky said. He felt sick to his stomach. Steve had to have figured it out, which meant that a) he wasn’t disgusted since he hadn’t punched Bucky or kicked him to the curb, and b) didn’t return the sentiment. Which was safer, really, because it meant Steve could woo Peggy and they could have a normal life. Maybe Bucky would look Dot up when he got back and then they could try for their own kind of normal.

“True.” Another long pause. “I want you to know, Barnes, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to see if my theory was correct.”

“Your theory?”

“Well, there had to be a reason that you don’t like me but aren’t deterring Steve from seeing me. You’re civil, respectful, but only enough that it doesn’t cause a problem. So I thought that perhaps it was because you are jealous,” Peggy said.

“I’m not,” Bucky said, perhaps a little too quickly. Peggy gave him a knowing look. “Maybe I am,” he admitted. “But I’m not gonna get in the way. Steve deserves a good life, a normal life. I can’t give that to him, but you can. So, I guess you have my blessing? If that’s what this is about.”

“It wasn’t but thank you anyway,” Peggy said, smiling. It was hard not to like her as a person. “I’m surprised you didn’t protest more; most people don’t respond kindly to what I was suggesting.”

“Most people haven’t been confronted already. I dated a girl who saw right through me like you did. Not much use in fighting it, ‘specially when I know you’re not as prim and proper as everyone thinks you are.”

“Oh really?” Peggy said, raising an eyebrow.

“Most guys wouldn’t notice but, the lipstick smudge on your thumb isn’t your color. But I know a pretty blonde who wears that color.”

Peggy nodded, holding back laughter. “Then neither of us are as good at hiding as we’d hoped.”

“Terrible thing in this line of work.”

“Indeed.”

After that, Peggy and Bucky often shared a knowing look when they saw each other. Bucky started encouraging Steve to spend time with her and started getting to know her himself. Sometimes they’d go out as a trio.

“Oh, Bucky, did Steve ever tell you about his time at Camp Leigh?” Peggy asked, calming her laughter one night when the three of them were drinking and talking in Steve’s room — being an officer had its perks.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Then you haven’t heard about the grenade.”

“The what?”

“Peg, he doesn’t need to know about —” Steve started, his cheeks already turning pink.

“The recruits for Project Rebirth were training,” Peggy said, ignoring Steve’s protest. “And Phillips tossed a grenade into the group while they were doing jumping jacks.”

“What?”

“It was a dummy, though no one knew at first. I started to move, but Steve was closer. While everyone else dove for cover, Steve just curled up around it,” Peggy said, still laughing a little. “That was when I knew he was going to be the one to have the serum.” She looked at him and Bucky knew that that moment was also the one that she fell for him.

“Is it now,” Bucky said, staring a hole through Steve’s head. Steve stared resolutely at his glass, which he spun with his fingers.

“He was so brave.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“It was a dummy, Buck,” Steve said. “Nothing happened.”

 Bucky narrowed his eyes but left it at that. Steve was sweating enough as it was, and the only time Bucky had ever seen Steve look so uncomfortable and guilty was when he’d rescued an alley cat from some boys that were throwing sticks and rocks at it and the damn thing tore up his new Sunday best shirt. Sarah Rogers had put the fear of God in Steve then, but in the end, she’d been proud of him for standing up to those boys. She just didn’t tell him till years later, when the rags she’d made from the un repairable shirt had all become threadbare and unusable.

Bucky wasn’t going to have rags, but he wasn’t gonna say anything for awhile either.

“What other stupid things did Steve do?” Bucky asked, turning back to Peggy and letting the mood in the room lighten again. There wasn’t enough time to be happy while at war, they had to revel in every second that they got.

*****

 “Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?” Bucky asked Steve as they stared across the mountain valley to the train tracks. Snow covered everything, leaving the whole scene a blinding white with only the gray of the sky and mountains to break it up. Oh, and Steve’s ridiculously patriotic uniform.

 “Yeah, and I threw up?” Steve said.

 “This isn’t payback is it?” Bucky joked. He was nervous, sure. He always was wary before a mission, but something about this felt off. Their information was too good, too easy to come by.

 “Now why would I do that?” Steve smirked. And then it was time to do something stupid and daring.

 Bucky pushed his worries aside. Everything would be fine — they’d get Zola, finish Hydra, and go the fuck home.

*****

 Bucky had never really minded the cold or snow. The cold had easier on Steve’s lungs, so that was always a relief. And it was an excuse to curl up close together under blankets, sharing body heat and trading breaths as they talked until they fell asleep. Snow was beautiful. It turned the dirty buildings and streets of Brooklyn into something clean and uniform until people started moving around, turning the snow gray.

 The snow around him wasn’t gray; it was red. Why was it turning red?

 Bucky couldn’t feel his left hand, but he couldn’t really feel his right either. Maybe he was freezing to death. Wouldn’t that be something — freezing to death after surviving a fall that no one should have been able to survive? Bucky tried to laugh but he was too tired and it hurt too much.

 Footsteps crunched in the snow from somewhere behind him. It sounded like they were coming closer. He could just make out a man standing above him. His uniform looked Russian. Someone started dragging him, and when he looked down, he saw a trail of red snow that ended where his arm should have been.

 A small price for survival, right? he thought. Bucky blinked slowly once, twice, before letting himself succumb to darkness.

 Sure they were Russians, but they were allies. Maybe they’d help him get home.

*****

 Her voice was like a ghost’s coming through the fog and haze of pain: _You’ll come home, Sarge. ‘Cause you got someone to come home to, silly!_

 He wasn’t sure that was true anymore. He’d had Steve to go home to, but Steve, the stubborn ass, had followed him to Europe, to war. So he wasn’t home anymore. But Bucky remembered someone telling him that home wasn’t necessarily a place; it could be a person.

 “I think I have something that will break you, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” the nameless Russian that had been torturing him since they dragged him out of that ravine said mockingly. He threw a newspaper in front of him and it slid across the floor, bumping into Bucky’s leg.

 His head rolled on the wall to look down at it, the headline taking up most of the page, big, bold letters reading: CAPTAIN AMERICA CRASHES INTO ARCTIC — HERO GOES MIA.

 Bucky swallowed as best he could but his mouth was too dry. He shook his head, blinking back tears he couldn’t afford to show. Steve was coming for him, he had to be.

 “Your fearless captain is dead,” the Russian said, “there is no point in protecting him now. What do you say?” The man crouched down to look Bucky in the eye.

 “Barnes, James Buch—” The man slapped him, cutting him off. Bucky took a moment to gather himself. “Sergeant, 32—”

 “Podgotov'te yego,” he said to the guards standing by the door of this small concrete cell.

“—557038. Barnes, James —” they pulled him to his feet — “Buchanan, Sargeant, 32557038. Barnes, James —” He kept repeating it, over and over just like he had the first time he’d been captured, experimented on. His throat hurt and his mouth was dry and he felt like if he could he’d throw up or cry until he had no tears left to ever cry again but he wasn’t going to give up.

If there was one thing that Steve taught him, it was that you never give up. You always stand up. _Always_.

*****

My name is Bucky Barnes. I am in love with Steve Rogers. We grew up together in Brooklyn, New York.

 My name is Bucky Barnes. I am in love with Steve Rogers. We grew up together.

 My name is Bucky Barnes. I am in love with Steve Rogers.

 My name is Bucky Barnes. I am in love with...

 My name is Bucky.

 My name is…

 My name is…

 “Gotov k vypolneniyu.” _Ready to comply._

*****

 Target acquired. Wait for a clear shot.

_You can do this. You’re a soldier. Orders are orders, right?_

 Target eliminated.

_So why does it feel so wrong to follow them?_

*****

 The girls were twelve. Only one — she had red hair — came back. They told him to teach her survival skills. As if she hadn’t just learned all there was to know.

 He taught her how to survive. Not the wilderness, not combat, but her training. He taught her how to tuck away a tiny piece of humanity and hide it in plain sight. She was a quick learner.

*****

 Target acquired. Wait for a clear shot.

 “Voz'mite vystrel, Soldat.”

_There’s a little girl in your sights, don’t you dare take the shot!_

 “Voz'mite vystrel, Soldat.”

 The Soldier took the shot. For the first time in his years of service, he missed. The pain was worth it.

*****

 She was sixteen. They said she passed, that she was the best Black Widow they had trained, in part thanks to his help.

They saw a weapon. He saw a young girl too scared to even admit she was terrified of what she’d become. But it was good that she was scared — she’d saved some piece of her humanity like he’d taught her.

 _Her name is Natalia. Don’t forget that. Her name is Natalia_.

*****

 Retrieve the case. Eliminate witnesses.

 “Sergeant Barnes?”

_He knows you! You know him! His name is Howard Stark, he’s your friend, he can help you —_

 The Soldier killed him swiftly, without malice. Bucky Barnes screamed.

*****

 Somehow Americans got ahold of him. He didn’t know how.

_Does it matter who gives the orders? They’re awful no matter who gives ‘em._

*****

 “Bucky?”

  _You — you should know that. You know that. You know him. Right? You know you do. You know you do so why the fuck don’t you?_

 “Who the hell is Bucky?”

  _You know him. But why can’t you remember him?_

*****

 “That man on the bridge, I knew him.”

 “You met him on an assignment earlier this week.”

  _That’s not right, that’s not the whole story, You know it isn’t! You know it isn’t. His name is Steve Rogers and you have loved him since you were thirteen. The sun caught on his hair, gave him a halo —_

 “Wipe him.”

*****

 Remembering meant pain. Pain meant forgetting. So what was the point of remembering in the first place?

 “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

 The act of remembering was painful. Did memories always bring pain with them?

_No, not always. But nostalgia, regret, and guilt are their own kinds of pain._

 “I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my friend.”

 This man wants him to remember.

  _You should. You can. I’m right here_.

 “Then finish it. ‘Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

 The moment was crystal, like it was happening in front of him — the walk-up, the hidden key, the vow, the unspoken truths — Steve.

  _Save him. He couldn’t follow you, but you can and you always have followed him._

 He left Steve on the river bank, alive and breathing. Someone would find him. Someday, he’d come back, find Steve again. He had promises to keep, but for now, he needed to remember. And remembering hurt.

 He had a feeling it hurt Steve more.

*****

 He kept moving for awhile. Went back to places he remembered, scaring the shit out of the few Hydra agents he encountered, leaving them with wounds that would eventually heal and a heap of destroyed records. Some places he just leveled, but it was all for the sake of the future. They’d never make someone else go through the things they’d done to him.

 Pierce once told him that he’d helped shaped the century. But Hydra had been banking on Project Insight to shape this century and all the ones to follow. Now Bucky was shaping this century by making sure Hydra couldn’t shape it ever again.

 Eventually, the weight of destruction became too heavy for him to bear. He stopped tracking down bases and hideouts and safe houses, stopped destroying records and intimidating agents and changing the game. He stopped moving.

 He started looking for an apartment in the city he was in. He was pretty sure he was in Romania, and a newspaper confirmed that. He knew Romanian, at least enough to blend in a little. He found a nice studio tucked up in a corner of an older building. No one could get there without coming up or down the staircase that was so narrow two people could barely pass by each other.

 Laundry day sucked, but the sense of security he had was worth it.

 

 He didn’t meet any of his neighbors for the first month he was there. He wasn’t avoiding them, but he wasn’t seeking them out either. But then one of his neighbors knocked on his door.

 He grabbed one of his knives (just a precaution, he told himself) and left his sad dinner on the table. He glanced through the peephole before opening the door.

 She couldn’t have been older than fourteen, skinny in a way that meant she didn’t eat much, and her blue tank top was faded to almost a grayish color. She looked terrified.

 “I know you probably don’t want to be bothered, but —” she in rapid Romanian before cutting herself off when they heard a loud crash from the floor below.

 “LIDIA!” someone bellowed. The girl flinched.

 “Please don’t make me go back downstairs,” she whispered like she was afraid the guy would hear her. Bucky stepped aside and she hurried into the apartment. “Thank you.”

 “Who was yelling for you?”

 “My step-dad. He’s just drunk, he’ll calm down in an hour or so. It’s just my mom is running late, she had to pick up someone’s shift at work and I don’t like being alone with him when he’s like this.”

 “He do this to you?” Bucky asked pointing to the bruises on her arms. He wasn’t sure why he was so protective of this redheaded girl, but he was involved now.

 She shook her head. “I’m just clumsy. Always running into things,” she lied. She glanced around at the apartment, eyes pausing just a little longer on the newspapers covering the windows than anything else. She didn’t seem scared of him — or at least she was less scared than she was of her step-dad.

 “Do you want something to drink?” Bucky offered. He was sure he had a clean cup somewhere…

 “No, thank you.”

 Bucky nodded. He told her she could sit down if she wanted and cleared his dinner off the table. She cautiously perched on the edge of the chair, looking ready to bolt at any second.

 “Can I ask why you came up here?” he asked as he sat down across from her.

 “I don’t know. I just needed to get out and I knew you were home so I just… came up. I’m not bothering you, am I? If I am, I can go, I’m very sorry for wasting your time —” she babbled, curling in on herself. Bucky wasn’t even sure she was aware she was doing it.

 “No, no, of course not,” Bucky said, a little too fast, maybe, but he wanted to reassure this girl that he wasn’t going to hurt her. She visibly relaxed, letting out a long sigh.

 “You’re a lot nicer than everyone thinks,” she told him, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Some of the other people in the building think you’re a hitman or part of the mafia.”

 Bucky blinked. “Why do they think that?”

 “You walk like you know you could kill someone if you wanted,” she said, shrugging. “You aren’t the first guy to live here like that, but you’re the first people think could get away with it.”

 “I’m not part of the mafia,” Bucky said. She nodded, then started absently scratching at her arm. Bucky looked at the scab. A cigarette burn. “But if you ever need help,” he said very seriously, leaning forwards, “they won’t be able to find him.”

 She stared at him for a long while before nodding slowly. “I’m Lidia, by the way.”

 “Bucky.” They shook hands.

 

 Within a few weeks, Lidia started coming over with her schoolwork and would sit at Bucky’s table working on it until her mom came home. When she came over with a black eye, Bucky didn’t ask (even though he wanted to go downstairs and give the guy a piece of his mind) and handed her a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel. After the third time of using it as an ice pack, Bucky just labeled it as one so he didn’t accidentally eat them and then not have something for her.

 He also bought a first aid kit. Something told him he should be prepared for any injury she could get. Sorting through the kit on his table, he remembered using ace bandages on a scrawny blond — Steve — until they wore out. He remembered taping gauze to Steve’s forehead, wrapping his knuckles, and cleaning split lips. Those injuries, he knew, Steve got because he “went looking” for fights.

 Lidia wasn’t looking for a fight. But he taught her how to fight back anyway. He hadn’t really meant to at first, but one night when he was working out she started mirroring him with a slightly mischievous, slightly determined look in her eye. He toned it down a little so she could keep up, but it was still a challenge. After a few weeks of “training,” Bucky saw her teaching a small group of kids what he’d shown her. He pushed her a little harder after that but never told her that he knew.

 Bucky had a faint memory of another young red-head teaching younger children what she knew in an effort to protect them. He was pretty sure he was ordered to put a stop to it. He hadn’t wanted to, but he had anyway.

 He helped Lidia with her homework some nights. He had a lot to learn for some subjects (like history and science) but she appreciated his help for her English class. It was her second language, but she was a quick learner and it helped that Bucky spoke English so she could practice. Once she burst in proudly brandishing a perfect score on her test, struggling to catch her breath after sprinting up all the stairs. Bucky had put it up on his fridge next to the random napkin and margin doodles she’d made.

 He wasn’t quite sure why he felt like he needed to keep every doodle, but when he thought about it, he only remembered a hidden shoe box full of them in a drafty one-bedroom apartment that had felt like home.

 She helped him find a job when he got fired from the grocery store he was working at. He wasn’t given a reason. Lidia shrugged and said the restaurant she had just gotten hired at was looking for another bartender. The old ladies who ran the place were sweet and hired Bucky on the spot, going on about how he needed a good meal. He and Lidia both put on weight while working there. Oana and Flavia were good people and they enjoyed working there.

 Lidia never asked about his notebook that he kept, though he could tell she was curious. He wrote in it a lot, some things coming back easier than others, but he didn’t want to forget anything. He had years of memories coming back in tiny trickles, but spending time with Lidia brought back a lot. She reminded him of people that helped him sort Bucky Barnes from the Winter Soldier.

 He remembered Natalia. She was why he had felt so protective of this girl the first time they’d met. Their hair was almost the same shade of red.

 “Someday, I want to meet her,” Lidia said once while they were watching the news at the restaurant during a slump. The Avengers were in Sokovia, and the camera was on the Black Widow for the time being. “She’s my hero.”

 “I’m sure you will, kid,” Bucky said, nudging her arms out of his way to wipe the counter down. New bruises still found a way to replace the old ones, but they were becoming less frequent. Lidia still didn’t talk about it.

 He remembered Steve. It was easy enough since Captain America was a beacon of hope and freedom for a lot of people, but Lidia helped in her way, too. The sharp lines of her jaw and cheekbones, her pointy elbows, and even the bruises mottling her otherwise fair skin all reminded him a version of Steve he’d never get back. If he ever got Steve back at all.

 Lidia also reminded him of his younger sister, Becca. Remembering Becca meant remembering the rest of his family — and that, he didn’t like doing much. It always brought with it the reminder of how much time had passed. Remembering anything was bittersweet, but with his family, it all hurt too much. He supposed that was grief.

 One Saturday that they both had off, Lidia was over working on her history homework and letting Bucky read her science textbook. She never asked why he was so curious, so he never had to come up with a reason why.

 “Do you remember much about World War II?” she asked, looking frustrated and at her wit's end.

 “Probably more than most,” Bucky said.

 “Do you know anything about the Battle of Azzano? I’m supposed to — Bucky?” she asked, hurriedly moving to his side. He barely noticed, his eyes squeezed shut and his brain traveling back in time. It wasn’t just the battle coming back, it was everything after, too.

 The battle, the advanced weapons, the confusion, the long march to the Hydra factory, the cells, the torture (experimentation?), Steve rescuing him...

 When he opened his eyes, he felt cold and sweaty. Lidia offered him a cup of tea. The sun had sunk lower in the sky, but it was still afternoon.

 “Grab my notebook,” he said. “Please.”

 “Here,” she said a moment later, handing him a pen and his notebook. He opened it and began writing, thanking her absently.

 She sat down on the floor in front of him, crossing her legs and watching him with a gaze that was somewhere between calculating and observant. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, unfolding it and smoothing it out on the floor as she waited for him to finish writing everything down. He glanced at her when his hand started cramping.

 “What?” he said, flexing his fingers.

 She slid the paper on top of his notebook so he could see what was printed on it. There were two pictures, both black and white from being printed, a few lines leaving little gaps in the images. The top one was labeled ‘Sgt. James ‘Bucky’ Barnes 17.09.1944’ in Lidia’s clean, blockish handwriting, and the bottom one was labeled ‘Winter Soldier 4.04.2014’. In both of them, his face was clear enough through the poor image quality and crappy printer to recognize.

 “Are you him?” she asked. Bucky stared at her. She stared back.

 “I don’t do that anymore,” he said, handing back the piece of paper. She nodded, folding up the paper.

“I wasn’t sure until you —” She gestured at him and the notebook still sitting in his lap. “I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said. “But it explains why you look so scary but are actually — what was it, uh, it’s, ugh —”

Bucky smiled slightly. This happened once in awhile — when they were speaking English, she’d forget a word or two and flounder for a minute. It was kinda cute. Okay, no, Bucky thought it was adorable. But then again, there were a lot of things Lidia did that were adorable.

“A cinnamon roll!” she cried, snapping her fingers as her face light up. “That’s what Tumblr calls it.”

He chuckled. “I am not.”

“Yeah, you are,” she said. Lidia got up to her feet and went back to the table to keep working on her homework. He drank the tea she’d made for him and watched her work.

Bucky smiled, looking around his apartment and realizing that he’d built something for himself. He had a few paperbacks, some kitchen utensils in a jug Lidia had decorated for him, some magnets on the fridge, a small radio that was softly playing the pop station Lidia liked. She was softly humming along.

Bucky realized the only thing that was missing was Steve.

The thought surprised him. He wasn’t sure why the hole in his life was Steve-shaped, but then again he knew why. They’d been inseparable until Bucky got his draft notice. They were each other’s shadows.

But a ghost can’t have a shadow, and neither can a beacon.

*****

 Lidia called him paranoid when Bucky felt like eyes were on him. He said he was being cautious. She handed him articles about PTSD she’d printed at the library. He glared at her but read them anyway.

 But today, today Bucky was sure that his paranoia was going to pay off.

 Why’d he have to go to the market? Why’d he have to get plums today? The plums were about the last thing that went right with his day.

 He’d stayed in one place too long. He had meant to move on after a couple months, but then he met Lidia… then Oana and Flavia… he’d made friends, he’d built a life. And it was biting him in the ass now.

 He put the newspaper down and hurried home. Maybe Lidia would be home early and he could say goodbye, try to explain things…

 Lidia wasn’t the one he found in his apartment.

 Not that he stayed long. No, because if there is one thing that Steve Rogers was good at, it was attracting fights.

 “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck,” he said.

 Bucky sighed. “It always ends in a fight.” Now he was hoping that Lidia was working late. He didn’t want her getting caught in the middle of this. He had known that something like this would happen sooner or later, that it was bound to happen if he stayed still long enough, but he had taken Lidia under his wing and felt like he couldn’t leave her alone in her shitty situation.

 He hoped she’d be okay.

 She’d probably be okay. But was _he_ going to be okay?

 God, he hoped so.

 

*****

 Everything was sterile white and metal. That was familiar, at least. That and the presence of a cryo tube. But this time it was his choice.

 Strange. He never thought he’d get to have a choice in anything again, but he’d made lots of choices and now… he was choosing this. Because it was better. Safer.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve asked.

Bucky looked up at him, giving him what he hoped was a comforting half-smile. “ I can't trust my own mind,” he said. Which was true. His memory was faulty about some things, but that’s why he wrote things down. But what Zemo had found in that notebook — that scared the shit out of Bucky. His mind, his body wasn’t his own.

Or his heart, he thought. Because it was still hung up on Steve. Bucky had gotten used to the dull ache of wanting Steve around but him not being there. He’d always felt it, even when he couldn’t remember who Steve was (or at times remember himself). But being so close to Steve and not being able to tell him anything lest he get in the way of Steve’s normal… it hurt too much. Hurt more than it used to.

Maybe things would be better when they woke him up. At the very least, they’ll have a way to give him back his mind.

*****

 When Bucky is pulled out of cryo, three people are waiting for him to wake up. They camped out on chairs in his hospital room. When Bucky opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Lidia curled up in a chair under Steve’s jacket. To his right, Steve was snoring softly. Natasha’s jacket was on the back of the other chair in the room, but she was staring out the window.

 “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said, leaning against the ledge and looking at him.

 “Dunno if that’s a good thing,” Bucky said, groaning as he tried to sit up.

 “You might not want to do that just yet,” Natasha said. Bucky huffed, propping himself up on the pillows better. She shook her head like she didn’t expect anything less. And since she knew Steve, Bucky wasn’t surprised.

 He looked back at Steve, taking in his longer hair and beard. He couldn’t remember Steve ever having a beard before. He looked good.

 Lidia’s hair was longer, too, and she had pierced her ears. Bucky wondered if all her bruises were gone. He couldn’t tell with Steve’s jacket covering her like a blanket. But her face looked fuller, healthier.

 “How long was I…”

 “A few years.”

 Bucky nodded. Years. More time that he’d lost. He just hoped this time was the time that it was all worth it.

 Steve shifted, groaning as he sat up. Bucky and Natasha looked over at him.

 “Hey, Buck,” he said, still half-asleep. Then, more alert, “Bucky!”

 “Hey,” Bucky said, smiling a little in spite of himself. Steve’s smile had always been infectious. God, what had he been thinking? He should’ve stayed awake, how could he keep wasting what precious time he had with Steve? How could he keep doing this to himself?

  _He’s not like you, remember? He’s the boy with the halo, the one who died to save others._

 “How do you feel?” Steve asked.

 “Alive,” Bucky said. Steve shook his head, smirking.

 “Some days that’s enough.”

 “How long have you been in that chair?” Bucky asked when Steve rubbed his neck again. Steve blushed and looked a little sheepish.

 “The better part of two days,” he admitted.

 “If I could reach you, I’d smack you, Rogers,” Bucky said.

 “He didn’t want you to be alone,” Natasha said. “No one was there for him when he woke up.” Steve glared at her like she’d revealed something she’d “promised” not to. She just shrugged. “It’s what you told me. He should know how much you care.”

 “Nat,” Steve said, a warning bite to his tone. She raised an eyebrow, giving him a look Bucky couldn’t quite decipher.

 “Your life,” she said. “I’m going to go find a doctor.”

 “I think I’ve missed a lot,” Bucky said after Natasha left. Steve nodded.

 “It’s been a long five years.”

 “Five?” Bucky asked, shocked. God, no wonder everyone looked older. He was used to losing years at a time, but this was the first time he actually felt like he was missing something.

 “Yeah. Things have… changed. Some for better, others not so much.”

 Bucky let the silence grow as he processed losing another five years. He watched Lidia sleep, and if his math was right she’d be about twenty-one now. She was an adult.

 “I’m sorry,” Bucky said. “I didn’t think it would be so long.” Which was only partially true — he was sorry, but he thought it would be longer. Long enough for Steve to move on.

 “It’s fine, Buck,” Steve said, taking Bucky’s hand in his own. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” They stared at each other for a moment. Neither let go of the other’s hand for a few minutes. Steve rubbed his thumb over Bucky’s knuckles. He didn’t want him to stop.

Then Lidia woke up.

 “You’re awake,” she mumbled in Romanian. “That’s good.” She rubbed her eyes, letting Steve’s jacket slip off her shoulders and into her lap as she untucked herself. Then she blinked, frowning at the corner of Bucky’s hospital bed.

 Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand a little harder when he tried to retract it. Lidia stood up and turned towards Bucky, wagging an accusatory finger at him and swearing in Romanian, yelling at him for not leaving her a letter or anything, for disappearing and then not waiting to see her before going into cryo.

 When she was finished, she hugged him tightly. “I missed you,” she whispered in English. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

 “I don’t plan on it,” Bucky said. He reluctantly let go of Steve’s hand so he could hug her back. “Have they been treating you well?”

 “Yes,” she said, sitting back up. “King T’Challa has been very generous.”

 “We’ll catch up later,” Bucky said, smiling at her as Natasha came back in with a doctor. Lidia nodded and moved out of the way.

 “I’m holding you to that.”

*****

 Part of Lidia’s definition of “catching up” was sharing all the music that she’d come across while Bucky was in cryo. She made him a playlist of all the music she thought he would like, and a second one of songs that she thought it was simply important for him to know. Apparently, Sam and Natasha had helped her with that one.

 “Sam added all the classic rock,” Lidia said. “Well, not all, but most of it.”

 “Okay,” Bucky said, scrolling through the playlist. He wasn’t sure why Sam would have helped make a playlist for him, but he supposed it had more to do with Lidia being Lidia than anything. (And Natasha had definitely taught her a few tricks. It was like a fingerprint, but Bucky wasn’t entirely sure how he was able to recognize it — though he had a feeling it would come to him eventually.)

 And since he knew that Natasha had taught her a few things in addition to what he had taught her in the last few months — well, a few years ago for her — he sparred with her. She was getting pretty good. But that wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life, it was just a skill set she wanted to have.

 “I want to be a lawyer,” she told him one night as they sat crossed-legged on the floor in her room while eating pizza, “for children and women. I want to help people get out of situations like the one I was in.” She grabbed another slice.

 “Whatever you do, you know I’ll be proud of you, right?” Bucky said, putting his slice back down so she knew he was serious. She stared at him for a moment before nodding.

 “I know. Believing it is sometimes tricky, is all.”

 “I mean it.”

 “I know,” she said, grinning. “But I also know that you don’t think it’s easy to accept that Steve thinks you’re worth all the trouble he’s gone through to get you here.” She took a bite of pizza, frowning when the cheese refused to break on its own.

 Later when Bucky went back to his room, he hit play on the playlist. It was on shuffle, so he’d heard a couple of the songs get repeated, but the first song tonight was a new one (to him anyway). He wasn’t really paying that much attention to it until it got to the chorus:

 

> _And all I can do is keep on telling you_
> 
> _I want you (I want you)_
> 
> _I need you (I need you)_
> 
> _But there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you_
> 
> _But don’t be sad (don’t be sad)_
> 
> _‘Cause two outta three ain’t bad_

 He stood frozen next to the desk for the remainder of the song, and as soon as it finished, he played it again, listening to the lyrics intently.

 And then again.

 And again.

 The lyrics struck a chord within him. Bucky knew if he thought about it, he could easily figure out why even if he was still missing most of his memories. And even without thinking about it, he knew why. Oh god did he know because the song made him feel seventeen again.

*****

 A few weeks rolled by without Bucky really noticing. Time hadn’t meant much to him since before Hydra had him, to be fair, but it was hard to keep track of the days when they fly by so quickly.

 There were a few things that made it easier to keep track of the time: Natasha came and left, as did Steve, and Lidia had classes that she went to, and of course Bucky had his own appointments with doctors who were doing their best at helping him through all the trauma.

 He spent a lot of time with doctors. It was one of the things that made time blur.

 But time didn’t blur as much around Natasha, with her enigmatic presence and charm. Bucky liked that about her. And he liked her personality. He found himself comparing her to Dot often, as well as the Russian girl Natalia that he remembered training.

 The two of them were lounging poolside in the sun when it finally clicked. Bucky sat straight up and looked at her with wide eyes. Natasha peered over her sunglasses at him.

 “Something wrong, Barnes?”

 “You’re Natalia. I trained you,” he said. She grinned and pushed her sunglasses back up.

 “That took you a lot longer than I expected,” she said. “I suppose you don’t remember shooting me in Odessa either.”

 “I what?”

 “Well, you shot a scientist through me if you want to be specific,” she said, her fingers tracing over the scar just above her bikini bottom.

 “I’m sorry,” Bucky said automatically. He meant it though.

 Natasha looked at him for a moment before standing up. She took his hand and pressed his fingertips to the scar. “This is proof of two things: I survived, and you didn’t want to kill me.”

 He looked up at her and she shook her head, smiling sadly.

 “You and Steve both carry too much guilt. That and you’re both repressing your feelings hard enough I doubt you’re even aware of them,” she continued, spinning the conversation into a lighter one.

 “Feelings?”

 “Love. Affection. Lust,” she listed as she wandered over to the pool steps.

 “I’m not repressing anything,” Bucky said, knowing it was a lie the moment he said it. It sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. Natasha shot him a look over her shoulder.

 “Yeah and Steve doesn’t pretend everything is fine,” she said. She dipped her toes into the water, debating if she actually wanted to get in. She gave him another pointed look. “You two should have an honest conversation, you know.”

 “All our conversations are honest,” Bucky said.

 Natasha shook her head and sighed. “If you say so.”

 “Why didn’t you mention you knew me?” Bucky asked. Natasha raised an eyebrow but let him change the topic.

 “I wasn’t sure what you would remember.”

 “I remember training you. I turned you into a killer.”

 “One of the best, yes,” she said, slowly going the steps into the pool. “But you also taught me not to let it consume me, to remember that love and humor aren’t weaknesses. Why else do you think a Black Widow is now an Avenger?” She spread her hands out on top of the water, moving them in a half-circle out from her torso.

 “They said you were the best they’d ever trained.”

 “And then they let you train me. You reminded me I was human, something I was losing at six years old. I’m returning the favor.”

 “Is there a catch?” Bucky teased.

 “This isn’t out of the selflessness of my heart, no. Steve is my friend, too,” Natasha said before ducking underneath the water and starting to swim laps.

 Bucky never got to ask her what she meant because Steve came down a few minutes later, trailing behind Wanda and Lidia who were talking animatedly about something.

 

 Being near Steve also helped him keep track of time. Well, sort of. Sometimes it got tricky with his memories coming back in bursts and fractured pieces. But mostly, mostly it helped Bucky focus on the here and now.

 Part of what kept Bucky grounded was that Steve had a beard now, and he’d never had that before. It made him look older. Bucky liked it, so when Steve said he might shave it off…

 “No, don’t,” Bucky blurted, turning red as the others turned to look at him. Natasha, Wanda, and Lidia shared a knowing glance.

 “See? Even Barnes thinks you look better with a beard, Steve,” Natasha said.

 “A beard on your face is better than one on your arm anyway,” Clint said. Steve almost spit out his water and Sam started laughing his ass off when he saw Bucky’s face.

 “Man, Barnes doesn’t know what that means,” he said.

 “A beard is slang for when a gay man dates a woman, right?” Lidia asked.

 “More or less,” Natasha answered, grinning mischievously at Steve, who was starting to turn red, too.

 “I’m still not sure why that’s funny,” Bucky said slowly. Steve wasn’t gay.

 But the others were all laughing now. When Steve excused himself they tried to sober up but weren’t doing very well. Bucky left shortly after, suddenly too tired to be around people anymore.

*****

 The next morning, Bucky got out of bed a little earlier than normal so he could catch Steve alone before the others woke up.

 “Steve?” Bucky said, leaning against the counter and fiddling with the hem of his shirt, rolling it between his real fingers. He’d been thinking about it for awhile now and he was sure this memory was real, but he had to know. He had to know. Because if the previous night’s conversation meant what he thought it meant...

 “Yeah, Buck?” Steve said, looking up from making pancakes.

 “Didn’t you used to burn pretty much everything you made?” Bucky blurts out.

 Steve’s shoulders drop and he groans dramatically. “I burnt breakfast once.”

 “Yeah, but it was everything.”

 “I still don’t know how I managed to screw up coffee.”

 “From what I remember, you were coming out of the flu,” Bucky said. Remembering was good, so he just let the conversation flow. A natural out.

 “I was, yeah,” Steve said, giving him the same look he always gave Bucky when he remembered something innocuous, like how Steve had to put newspapers in his shoes to keep them from falling off.

 “I think I remembered something else,” Bucky said, his eyes flicking down to look at Steve’s lips for a fraction before looking back up at his eyes because apparently, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But it was now or never, he supposed.

 “Whaddya remember?” Steve said.

 “I remember… Well, it’s a bit easier to show you,” he said. Bucky leaned in, gently cupping Steve’s face and kissing him, soft and chaste. When he pulled back, Bucky watched Steve’s face. His eyes stayed closed for a moment and a bolt of fear shot down Bucky’s spine. He felt the color drain from his cheeks. It was just like when they were teenagers — Steve didn’t want the same things Bucky did. He waited for the punch that he half hoped would come, just to get it over with.

 “We, um, we —” Steve said, stumbling over the words. He poured another pancake into the pan. “There was, um, one time,” he continued, his face and neck turning pink. “But you were drunk.”

 “Oh.”

 “We were just kids,” Steve said. He poured another pancake.

 “So it was nothing?” Bucky asked, staring at the floor. He couldn’t believe that he’d fucked things up. And they’d just started going so well, too.

 He was a fucking human disaster.

 “We never talked about it, so.” Steve shrugged.

 “Oh, okay. ‘M sorry,” he said in a rush, leaving the room quickly. Once he was in his room, he leaned heavily on the door. “Fuck.”

 Human. Fucking. Disaster.

 He’d remembered remembering that kiss, so how could they have not talked about it? They had to of, at some point or another, right? Come on, how much time had Bucky spent at Goldy’s and he never even tried to talk to Steve about it? He musta been a masochist or something to keep so close to Steve and yet hold him at arm’s length like that.

 Or scared, he realized as he moved to sprawl out on the bed. He remembered being scared a lot. Of getting beat up, of losing Steve, of getting punched by Steve. Then of someone finding out when he was in the army, of the dishonorable discharge that would follow. And of losing Steve in a different way: not just Steve leaving him, but of Steve dying.

 He buried his face in one of the pillows and focused on the burn in his lungs since it was slightly harder to breathe. He stayed like that until he couldn’t anymore, then just flipped over and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was wrong with him, before leaving for his appointment. Those trigger phrases weren’t going to disappear on their own.

 If he purposely avoided Steve for the rest of the week and played “Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad” on a loop, that was nobody’s business but his own.

*****

Bucky went to what had become his “spot” to relax after trigger phrase removal sessions. He was always exhausted after, and no one really came up to the roof of the palace, let alone wandered around to lean up against one of the giant AC units. But today, someone was waiting for him.

 “Buck, we need to talk,” Steve said, getting to his feet just as Bucky noticed him.

“About what?” Bucky asked, wondering why Steve was there or how he’d known to come up here. Bucky realized he’d fallen into a habit — he’d grown predictable, findable. Like in Bucharest.

“I think you know,” Steve said. Suddenly he couldn’t look Bucky in the eye.

Bucky felt like he was gonna throw up. This was about the kiss. Fuck, maybe it was about both of them. Was Steve finally gonna tell him that he was disgusted with him? He had been sober this time, there wasn’t an out for it, no excuse. This was it, this was how he was gonna lose Steve.

“Okay,” Bucky said. He stared at the ground in front of Steve’s feet.

Steve took a deep breath. “I don’t really know how to tell you this, Buck, but…”

 _I don’t want to be friends anymore. I don’t want to see you again._ Bucky’s brain filled in a hundred similar ways to end that sentence. He couldn’t have possibly been prepared for what happened next.

And by that, of course, he meant Steve squaring up and marching up to Bucky to close the distance between them, tilting his chin up and kissing him like he was someone special, someone loved, someone cherished.

Then Steve took a half step back. His face was flushed, but Bucky was sure his was, too. Steve had always looked so pretty when he turned pink.

Bucky didn’t know what to say. Steve’s hands hadn’t moved, warm and comforting weights on his cheek and neck. Bucky swallowed, drinking Steve in, mesmerized by the way the setting sun lit up his blond hair like a golden halo.

“Buck?” Steve said. He sounded slightly hurt, confused.

Why was he confused? Bucky was the one who’s supposed to be confused (and he was). Steve wasn’t like him, Steve was supposed to be practically perfect in every way thanks to Erskine's serum. Bucky was the one who was dirty, a sinner damned to hell for loving Steve. His hell had started when he fell, it was a living nightmare that lasted decades. Bucky didn’t think it was possible to do enough penance for all his sins to make him worthy of being near Steve let alone —

Let alone be loved by him. The Brooklyn angel with his golden halo that he’d fallen in love with on the fire escape one September afternoon eighty-odd years ago.

Steve moved to take his hands away, jolting Bucky out of his head. He grabbed Steve’s wrist to make his hand stay on his cheek without being fully aware of it.

They stared at each other.

“Does this mean… I mean, do you —” Bucky started.

“I want you,” Steve interrupted, stepping closer again now that Bucky had made it clear he wanted Steve to stay. “I need you.”

Bucky knew what line came next and braced himself.

“And, if I’m gonna be honest here, Buck, I love you,” Steve said.

Bucky blinked. “What?”

“I heard you listening to that song over and over,” Steve said, looking a bit bashful about it even though Bucky had been blasting it on repeat for awhile now. “I wasn’t sure why you kept listening to it, but then when you kissed me…” He paused. “I didn’t think you remembered that.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Bucky mumbled.

“I realized that I needed to fix the song. That lyric ‘there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you’?” Steve said. Bucky nodded. “Terrible grammar.” Bucky chuckled. “Also a complete lie.”

“You never were good at lying,” Bucky said, pulling Steve closer. His heart was racing and he couldn’t believe this was happening. If he was dreaming, he never wanted to wake up.

“Was never good at talking about feelings either,” Steve said, blushing and ducking his head. God, it was so unfair to have someone so hot also be so adorable. “But I’ve known I loved you since I was sixteen,” he continued, looking Bucky dead in the eye.

“Really?” Bucky asked. He was hesitant, yes, but he’d been waiting for eighty fuckin’ years for this, so he was gonna make extra sure before he did anything because he was a human disaster that fucked up everything good in his life. Because if this was really happening, there was no moving backward from this.

“Yeah,” Steve said and that was enough for now because Steve Rogers could never lie worth a damn.

Bucky pulled him in and kissed him, pouring everything he possibly could into it. It was clumsy and messy from them both being overeager and overwhelmed, but Bucky didn’t care. He didn’t care at all.

Because Steve wanted him. Steve needed him.

And, best of all, Steve loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> [ The Battle of Azzano ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPIuhF5MvU) is a deleted scene from _Captain America: The First Avenger_. Like the other movie scenes, I made what is more or less a transcription with my own added ideas. I do not take credit for any quotes or depictions that are from the MCU.
> 
> Have another [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGT1AcMRV9w) to the title song, so you don't have to go all the way back to the top.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://captainsleepingbeauty.tumblr.com/) if you'd like :)


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